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MEMOKIAL. 





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MEMORIAL 

OF THE 

LIFE AND SERVICES . 

OF THE LATE 

REV. HENRY A. ROWLAND, D.D., 

PASTOR OF THE 

PARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

NEWAEK, NEW JERSEY. 



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BY 


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NEW YORK : 




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DODD, 506 BROADWAY. 






1860. 





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Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1860, by 
M. W. DODD, 
In tbo Clerk's Office of tbe District Court of tbe United States for tbe South- 
ern District of New York. 



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MEMORIAL. 



We have been requested to give a sketch of 
the Life of the late Eev. Henry A. Kowland, 
D. D., late Pastor of the Park Church in New- 
ark, New Jersey. We have hesitated to com- 
ply with this request, lest we should do justice 
neither to him nor to ourself ; for, to describe 
him as he was, to portray him under the dif- 
ferent aspects in which he appeared as the 
shifting light fell upon him, requires a firm and 
skilful hand. Others too may be more com- 
petent than ourself to speak of his ministe- 
rial character and labors.. But we have known 
and loved him long, we have seen him at all 

hours and in many scenes, we have followed 
1* 



MEMORIAL. 



his course from youthful to riper years, and 
our heart has pleaded with the wishes of his 
friends that we should pay this tribute to his 
memory. We cannot hope that it will be a last- 
ing record of his useful life and services, but it 
may recall some things which those who knew 
him will wish to remember, and it will present, 
however imperfectly, the example of a warm- 
hearted, upright and generous man, frank, 
bold, decided, and independent, yet cordial, 
sympathizing, and true, fond of society, full of 
activity and good humor, the sincere Christian, 
the acceptable writer, the faithful and success- 
ful minister of the gospel. We shall be able, 
in the space allowed us, and under the circum- 
stances in which we write, only to trace some 
of the influences which formed his character, 
and to give a mere outline of his labors. The 
true record of his life is in its results, not yet 
nor soon to be complete, and is to be found, not 



MEMOEIAL. 7 

in these fleeting words, but in the communi- 
ties in which he lived, and in the many hearts 
there and elsewhere which he drew to himself 
and led to piety and virtue. 



Henry Augustus Eowland was born of 
pure New England stock and pious ancestry, at 
Windsor, in the State of Connecticut, on the 
nineteenth day of September, eighteen hun- 
dred and four. He was the eldest son of the 
late Henry A. Eowland, long a useful minis- 
ter of the First Congregational church of that 
town* and was a grandson of the Eev. David 
S. Eowland, the previous minister of that 
church. By his mother's side he was con- 
nected with the celebrated divine and meta- 
physician, Jonathan Edwards — one of the truly 
great men of New England and America, and 
for a short time the President of Nassau Hall : — 



8 MEMORIAL. 

and he was also a descendant of the Rev. John 
Warham, the first minister of Windsor, who 
had been "a famous minister in Exeter, the 
capital of the County of Devon " in England, 
and was " one of the principal fathers and 
pillars of the churches of Connecticut."* 

Dr. Bowland admired the noble band of 
exiles for religious liberty who planted New 
England, and was fond of tracing his lineage 
to the first settlement of his native town, where 
his ancestors filled the sacred office for periods, 
amounting together to nearly a hundred 
years. Windsor, as is well known, is the old- 
est town in the State of Connecticut, ana! was 
settled in the years 1635-6, from Dorchester in 
Massachusetts, the name of which town for a 
short time and until 1637, it assumed. As 
early as 1633 the Plymouth people came up 

Q Trumbull's Hist, of Connecticut, vol. 1, pp. 23, 467. 



MEMORIAL. y 

the river and established here a trading-house 
or factory. Eeports of the fertility of the soil 
on the Connecticut river and the adaptation of 
the country to plantation and trade, attracted 
settlers across the wilderness. In September, 
1636, the Eev. John Warham, who had been 
pastor of the church of Dorchester for six 
years, settled at "Windsor. His church and 
congregation, the whole of whom are said to 
have removed to this new place of abode, had 
generally preceded him. Mr. Warham had 
come over from England in 1630, in a vessel of 
four hundred tons, with an " honorable com- 
pany " drawn from three English counties, 
who, having been formed into a church just 
prior to their embarkation at Plymouth, 
brought with their pastor the ordinances of 
religion to a place in the wilderness, which 
they named Dorchester, whence, as we have 
stated, they removed a few years later to the 



10 MEMORIAL. 

fertile, but then savage valley of the Connec- 
ticut. Rev. Mr. Warham was pastor of the 
church at AVindsor for thirty -four years. The 
historian of Connecticut speaks of him and the 
Rev. John Davenport, one of the founders of 
the colony of New Haven, together as " those 
venerable fathers who had been singularly in- 
strumental in planting, and had long illumi- 
nated, the churches of Connecticut and New 
England."* 

Dr. Rowland often referred with respect 
and patriotic pride to his grandfather, the Rev. 
David S. Rowland, who was a graduate of 
Yale College, and preached for thirteen years 
at Plainfield, Connecticut, then at Providence, 
Rhode Island, and afterwards for eighteen 
years at Windsor, where he was settled March 

» Trumbull's Hist, of Conn., vol. 1, pp. 465, 46?— Pal- 
frey's Hist, of New England, vol. 1, pp. 339, 340, 369, 450, 
453, 454. 



MEMOEIAL. 11 

•27th, 1776, and where in January, 1794, he 
closed his ministry in its forty-fifth year, and 
in the seventy-fifth of his age. While pastor 
of a church at Providence he preached "at 
Wrentham in the Province of Massachusetts 
Bay, in New England, on the 14th day of 
July, 1774, on a day of fasting and prayer, 
occasioned by the distressed situation of public 
affairs," a sermon which is said to have made a 
great sensation, and is certainly remarkable for 
its ability, and for its fearless and emphatic an 
nouncement at that early period, nearly two 
years before the declaration of the inde- 
pendence of the colonies was signed, of the 
American doctrines of civil liberty. The text 
was, " My little finger shall be thicker than my 
father's loins." He breaks forth at times into 
a rude energy of expression, and assails the 
doctrine of passive obedience with contemptu- 
ous logic. His liberty-loving grandson keenly 



12 MEMORIAL. 

relished the argument, and caused the serm on- 
to be published in one of the public prints as 
au example of the freedom and independence 
of the pulpit in our revolutionarj- period. 

He thus speaks of his grandfather in con- 
nection with it : " The lion. Judge Daggett, 
of New Haven, informed me that he was 
present when the discourse was delivered, and 
that it produced a very great excitement. I 
have been told by my father that my grand- 
father was a powerful and eloquent preacher, 
of commanding presence in the pulpit, and of 
fine elocution. It was not my happiness to 
know him, he having died long before I was 
born. He was ever a firm and zealous de- 
fender of the liberties of our country against 
foreign aggression. He was pastor of the 
Presbyterian or Congregational church in 
Providence, Ehode Island, at the time when 
the war of the Eevolution commenced. So , 



MEMOKIAL. 13 

obnoxious had he made himself to the enemies 
of the country by his bold and patriotic 
defence of our liberties from the pulpit, that 
when the town of Providence was invested he 
fled with his family in a sloop ; and during the 
darkness of the night he escaped through the 
enemy's fleet and went up the Connecticut 
river. He afterwards settled in Windsor, 
where he died. He not only impaired his 
fortune in the cause of our country, but he 
equipped a son and sent him into the field, 
who continued in the service seven years and 
to the close of the war." Two of his sons 
were clergymen, — the late Eev. William F. 
Eowland, of Exeter, New Hampshire, an 
amiable and excellent man, and the Eev, 
Henry A. Eowland, of Windsor. 

Eev. Henry A. Eowland, who was a grad- 
uate of Dartmouth College, was settled at 
Windsor in 1790, as the colleague of his father, 



14 MEMORIAL. 

and remained as such colleague until his 
father's death, or for about four years, when 
he became the sole pastor of the First Congre- 
gational church of that town, where he died 
November 28th, 1835, in the seventy-first year 
of his age. He was a man of sense and 
worth, who did not hesitate to speak what he 
regarded as the truth with freedom and plain- 
ness. He was of unspotted character, and was 
esteemed as a sound preacher, and as " in doc- 
trine incorrupt." He was much interested in 
the religious intelligence of the day, and from 
the first in those benevolent religious enter- 
prises of New England, then in their infancy, 
which have since grown to majestic propor- 
tions. In his parlor, the Constitution of the 
Connecticut Bible Society, one of the earliest 
Bible societies of the country, was drawn up. 
The interest in benevolent objects which he 
felt he inspired from their earliest years in his 



MEMOEIAL. 15 

children. His parish, in all parts of which he 
constantly labored, was very extensive, run- 
ning no less than eleven miles along the river, 
and being upon an average perhaps three 
miles in breadth. His first wife was Elizabeth 
Newbery, by whom he had one child, who 
died in infancy. 

On the 14th of April, 1800, he 'married 
Frances Bliss, a daughter of the late Moses 
Bliss, of Springfield, Massachusetts, a woman 
of great loveliness and excellence of character, 
of unusual sweetness and modesty of disposi- 
tion, refined feeling, gentle manners, strong 
and steady affections, and warm and cheerful 
piety. To her might well be applied the 
beautiful lines of Pope — 

" Oh ! blest with temper whose unclouded ray, 
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day.' ' 

Her son Henry had great love and just ad- 
miration for his mother. 



16 MEMORIAL. 

Her father was one of the five members of 
the bar of the county of Hampshire, in the 
State of Massachusetts, who before the Revo- 
lution had reached the rank of barrister, and 
he was one of the principal advocates and 
counsellors in that county. His son, the late 
Hon. George Bliss, himself an eminent lawyer, 
in an address to the bar of the counties of 
Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin, in 1826, 
says of him: "I believe he was generally 
esteemed a sound lawyer and skilful special 
pleader. He graduated at Yale College in 
1775, studied divinity, and preached for some 
time ; after which he read law a year with Col. 
"Worthington, and was admitted to the bar at 
November Term, 1761, and left practice in the 
year 1798." He married Abigail Metcalf, a 
niece of President Edwards, by whom he had 
a numerous family of children, of whom the 
mother of Dr. Rowland was one. For several of 



MEMOEIAL. 17 

the -later years of his life he was a judge of the 

Court of Common Pleas for the County of 

Hampshire. "We are unable at this distance 

of time to state for what reason he changed his 

profession, but he was a man of character and 

piety, and for a long time and until his death 

was a deacon of the First Congregational church 

in Springfield. He died July 3d, 1814. 

Of the happy marriage of the parents of 

Dr. Eowland, there were five sons and two 

daughters, all of whom lived to mature life. 

Of these only one son and one daughter are 

now living. Their parents were anxious and 

careful to give their children a good education ; 

and, although the father had a very moderate 

salary, by great frugality and economy they 

accomplished the object. Three of the sons 

received a liberal education, and four of them 

entered the different learned professions. Two 

of them became ministers of the gospel — two 
2* 



18 MEMORIAL. 

brothers thus following in the footsteps of two 
brothers of a preceding generation. One of 
the brothers of Dr. Rowland was the Rev. 
James Rowland, who, after having been en- 
gaged for some years in the practice of medi- 
cine, abandoned it for the sacred ministry, 
and became the pastor of the Presbyterian 
church at Circleville, Ohio. He is said to 
have been " a marked and beloved member" 
of his Presbytery, and was an earnest and in- 
teresting preacher. When the cholera pre- 
vailed in the place of his residence, he per- 
formed the double duty of minister and 
physician. He died at Circleville of con- 
sumption, brought on by his incessant labors, 
manfully contending with disease to the last, 
preaching as long as it was possible to preach 
and until within three months of his death, 
continuing to use his pen when he could no 
longer occupy the pulpit, and calmly watch- 



MEMOEIAL. 19 

ing his own ebbing life, until his physician 
announced, in reply to an inquiry, that his 
pulse could be no longer felt. 

At Windsor, in the comfortable home, and 
amid the numerous family of his father, who, 
to supply the deficiency of his salary, culti- 
vated some farming-lands, and had some farm- 
ing-stock, and orchards of fine fruit, Henry 
spent a large part of his active and happy 
boyhood. He was from very early years fa- 
miliar with the gun and the fishing-rod, and 
all kinds of wood-craft and country sports, 
and to a certain extent such rural labors as 
were appropriate to his age. Thence in a great 
measure the excellent health so long preserved 
by him, that remarkable flow of spirits which 
was so characteristic of him through life, and 
that taste for the brook and woods, which 
never deserted him. His native place was 
favorable to such tastes and habits,- — an old, 



20 MEMORIAL. 

quiet farming town, with broad streets and 
venerable elms, on its eastern side swept for 
its whole length by the Connecticut, and con- 
sisting of a zone of fertile meadow along the 
river, and of level upland with fields and 
woodland behind. Through the centre of the 
town, past the church which crowned its bank, 
flowed the Farmington river, a considerable 
stream, which, rising in the mountains of 
western Massachusetts, first crosses its south- 
ern border and hurries towards the ocean, but 
suddenly turning northward at Farmington 
with reverted steps, as if loth to leave the 
pleasant country from which it comes, here 
runs easterly and separates the town into 
nearly equal parts. The town originally com- 
prehended large tracts of land on both sides of 
the Connecticut river, and in the part of Wind- 
sor, on the eastern side, now East Windsor, 
in 1703, Jonathan Edwards was t3orn. Like 



MEMOEIAL. 21 

Dr. Eowland, lie died at the age of fifty-five 
years. 

"^ETATIS LV. HEU NIMIS BREVIS,"* 

and his ashes also rest away from his native 
place in the soil of New Jersey. Windsor has 
another title to distinction, which in this con- 
nection we may perhaps be pardoned for men- 
tioning. It was the place of residence of Oli- 
ver Ellsworth, the second Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, to 
whom among other public services is attribu- 
ted the drawing of that famous act of Congress, 
the judiciary act, under which the Courts of 
the United States were organized, and their 
business has ever since been conducted. He 
was the parishioner at Windsor of the Eev. 
Mr. Eowland, who, on the death of Chief Jus- 
tice Ellsworth in the year 1807, preached his 
funeral sermon. 

* Epitaph of Pres. Edwards at Princeton. 



22 MEMORIAL. 

In this place, among such traditions and 
scenes, and under the instructions of such par- 
ents, in the freedom and affection of his own 
home, with the wide range of his father's par- 
ish, and a free welcome at the houses of rela- 
tives and friends, Henry spent a light and joy- 
ous youth, full of life, action, and excess of spir- 
its. Here he attended school until, we believe, 
his thirteenth year. For about six months he 
then went to the grammar-school in Hartford, 
but completed his preparation for college at 
the Academy in Springfield, the native place 
of his mother, where for that purpose he re- 
sided at the house of an uncle for two years or 
more. He pursued his studies at this school 
with considerable diligence. His mind was 
gaining general strength and expansion, if not 
much accurate learning. He was now the ar- 
dent, resolute, almost impetuous boy, a leader 
of sports on land and on water, his irrepressi- 



MEMORIAL. 23 

ble spirits breaking out in his intercourse with 
his friends and companions on all occasions, 
and in spite of every restraint, in laughter and 
frolic. In the circle of his numerous relatives 
at Springfield, who were so closely connected 
with his father's family, by ties of relationship 
curiously intertwined,* that all might be con- 
sidered as one larger family, he had freedom and 
indulgence, and his social nature was warmed 
and developed. 

But he was soon to enter on a different 
scene. In September, 1819, at the age of fif- 
teen, he entered Yale College. If not the 
youngest, as he believed, he was among the 
youngest of a class, which at the time of its 
graduation in 1823 consisted of seventy-two 
members. Of the four years spent by him 

* Two of the brothers of Mrs. Rowland, his mother, mar- 
ried, the one (Hon. George Bliss) the sister, and the other 
(Mr. Moses Bliss) the niece of his father. 



24 MEMORIAL. 

in college lie always retained a pleasant and 
grateful recollection. He was ever warmly 
attached to the venerable institution at which 
he was educated, which for more than one 
hundred and fifty years has pursued its career 
of honor and usefulness, and which has, at the 
present time, more than three thousand living 
graduates. His youth, and want of due and 
thorough preparation for college, prevented his 
taking that position in his class as a scholar 
which he might have otherwise reached, but 
he always considered the instructions and the 
discipline which he obtained there as of great 
and lasting value. 

He had reason to remember his connection 
with Yale College with pleasure and gratitude, 
for a more important reason : he experienced 
there that change of character, compared with 
which all others are trivial and unimportant. 
During his freshman year there was a revival 



MEMORIAL. 25 

of religion in New Haven, which extended to 

Yale College. His attention was arrested. 

Under the preaching and familiar instructions 

of the Eev. Mr. Nettleton, who was active in 

those scenes, he was deeply penetrated with a 

sense of his own guilt as a sinner, and of his 

need of that absolute and complete renovation 

which the Scriptures emphatically call a new 

birth. His convictions on the subject were 

deep and permanent. No one who has read 

his works, and knows how competent he was 

to guide troubled souls in the terrible conflict 

between nature and grace, between the powers 

of darkness and those of light, can doubt for 

a moment that he knew much of that conflict, 

and something of the victory too. He had 

led hitherto, not a vicious, but a thoughtless, 

careless, heedless life. He had been too well 

instructed not to know that a life without God 

in the world is not innocent because it does 
2 



MEMORIAL. 



not break out into bold and startling trans- 
gressions, and not to feel the claims of the 
law of God, in their strictness and extent, 
when pressed upon his awakened conscience. 
The lessons of his youth, and his familiar ac- 
quaintance with the Scriptures could not have 
left him much in doubt as to the plan of sal- 
vation, and he soon found peace in believing. 
The change in his character and course of life 
was marked and decided. Early in his Sopho- 
more year he began to think of making a 
public profession of religion. In a letter to a 
friend, dated 17th December, 1820, after say- 
ing that his time is very much taken up with 
his studies, and expressing his earnest desire 
that the^ord would pour out his Spirit on 
Springfield and Windsor, and his anxiety for 
the salvation of some of his young friends, he 
says: "I have lately thought a great deal 
about making a profession of religion. It is a 



MEMORIAL. 27 

very important 'duty, and cannot be entered 
into with too much prayer and self-examina- 
tion. It is a great thing to become a hum- 
ble, pious follower of our Saviour. I have 
thought, if I made a profession and did not 
according to it, it would be a greater dis- 
honors to the cause of Christ than if I never 
made a profession ; but God is able to keep 
me from dishonoring his cause, and if I trust 
in him he will do it. Some of my companions 
will come forward next communion. I think 
that I shall join with them. ... A great 
number are to be united to the church in 
town. The revival in college has ceased; 
who would have believed it ?" 

On the 7th of January, 1821, in his Sopho- 
more year, he made a public profession of his 
faith, and joined the College-church. "With 
his usual decision, he at once fixed upon his 
future profession, and determined to preach 



30 MEMORIAL. 

himself, the strong or hyperbolical expression 
by which he might give emphasis to his 
opinions, in his familiar conversation and his 

lighter writings which were generally the 
inspiration of the moment, lie did not try to 
suppress. Those who only saw the foam 
which sparkled on the surface, without know- 
ing the depth of his character, sometimes mis- 
apprehended him. 

It would be an error to suppose, however, 
that his simplicity and openness arose merely 
from native disposition— the natural sunshine 
of his heart. Much was no doubt due to this 
cause. But, at least in his mature life, we 
think that they sprang also from his convic- 
tion of what was right and proper, and be- 
longed to true Christian sincerity. 

And when we reflect on the impression he 
made on others by these qualities, united with 
his disinterested courage and large heart, 



MEMORIAL. 31 

when we remember the strong attachments 
which the j inspired, and the influence they 
gave him, we may well doubt whether the 
mistake is not often on the side of prudence, 
whether indeed timidity is always prudence, 
and whether a cold, artificial character, faultless 
in external demeanor but wanting in free 
expression, is not destitute of some of the 
strongest elements of attraction and nobleness. 
At that youthful period of life of which we 
were last speaking, he was overflowing with 
animation, with quick impulses. He uttered 
the rising thoughts of the moment. He often 
startled — perhaps he liked to startle — those of 
graver habits, by his disregard of mere con- 
ventional forms, or what were deemed the 
regular proprieties of time and place. Of an 
affectionate disposition, the presence of friends 
and kindred always exhilarated him, and in 
their society he gave the freest range to the 



32 MEMORIAL. 

expression of his feelings. He had a vein of 
humor, afterwards more fully developed, and 
liked to indulge it. His active mind ran 
rapidly from grave to gay, too rapidly often 
for others to follow, or detect the subtle thread 
of association by which he had been led from 
the one to the other. 

But in the discharge of his religious duties 
he was always serious and thoughtful, and in 
his religious principles firm and consistent. 
In all the methods adopted for the advance- 
ment of religion in college he took an inter- 
ested part, and he did not fail to admonish 
earnestly his young friends of the great im- 
portance of entering upon a religious life. 
His practical turn of mind was also at this 
period clearly manifested. But he was yet in 
the immaturity of youth, with mind and char- 
acter forming, but in a great measure un- 
formed. 



MEMORIAL. 33 

He maintained a fair character and standing 
through his college course, and had and after- 
wards retained the respect and regard of the 
officers of the college, as well as of his class. 
He was graduated at Yale College in Septem- 
ber, 1823, at the early age of nineteen years. 

For most of the following year he taught 
school, first a " small but pleasant" school of 
both sexes at Glastenbury, Connecticut, for 
four months, and then for six months " a large 
and wearisome" school at the Academy in his 
native town. That the charge of this Acade- 
my was entrusted to him by those who had 
known him in his thoughtless, boyish days, 
shows that his sterling qualities had not been 
overlooked. He found no difficulty in these 
early trials of his skill. 

In the meantime he was reading works of 
standard writers, with evident reference to the 

profession which he had chosen. In the autumn 

2* 



34 MEMORIAL. 

of the next year, 1824, lie entered the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. 
Here he was very studious and diligent, and 
labored with earnestness and success in the 
several departments of sacred study. His 
class was a fine one, and contained several who 
had taken the highest honors of college. Un- 
der the instruction of Woods, Stuart, and 
Robinson, he laid broadly and deeply the 
foundations of his professional education. In 
the summer of his second year, he was obliged 
by ill health to leave the Seminary for a short 
time and to go home, but he soon returned. 
We learn from one of his letters, that up to 
this year he had never been confined by sick- 
ness. In the winter he had some cold, but he 
says that he " took some warm tea and put a 
steam-engine to his feet" and was better. The 
letters written by him while he was at Ando- 
ver testify to his studious habits, and break 



MEMORIAL. 35 

out at times into characteristic humor. Hav- 
ing remained at the Theological Seminary for 
the usual term of three years, he left that in- 
stitution in the autumn of 1827. 

In June of that year, while yet a student at 
the Seminary, he was licensed to preach the 
gospel, by the Hampden Association, an asso- 
ciation of Congregational clergymen of the 
County of Hampden, Massachusetts. 

He went to New York in the autumn of 
that year, and undertook an agency for the 
American Bible Society. He is described by the 
Secretary of the Society as at this time " young, 
ardent, active, full of cheerful and at times 
mirthful conversation, yet so blended with 
frankness and good-nature, and all so obvious- 
ly devoted to the interests of religion, as to 
render him an agreeable companion and a 
promising minister." He was first employed 
in the State of New York in the counties of 



36 MEMORIAL. 

Columbia, Kensellaer, and Albany. In the 
spring of the following year he passed over 
to Maine, and went through that State. Re- 
turning he proceeded through the lower coun- 
ties of the State of Connecticut, the State So- 
ciety having just contracted its labors to the 
four Northern counties. He continued in his 
agency until the end of the summer of 1829. 
In this service he formed in these three States 
auxiliary societies, in direct connection with 
the parent society, with branches in the towns, 
connected with the county auxiliaries. This 
was an important work, in this early and what 
may perhaps be called transition period of 
the national society, when it was extending 
itself systematically over the older States. 
He then went to New York, and took the 
place, or discharged the duties of the Secretary 
of the Society, during his absence, and pre- 
pared, under the supervision of a committee, 



MEMOEIAL. 37 

certain publications for the Society. One of 
these was a pamphlet of about fifty pages, con- 
taining an exact and detailed account of the 
principles and operations of the American 
Bible Society, and of the manner of organiz- 
ing and conducting auxiliary and branch so- 
cieties, with numerous precise and practical 
suggestions. He was thus employed until the 
spring of 1830. We have reason to believe* 
that, in his connection with the American 
Bible Society, he showed much executive abil- 
ity, and we are assured that his whole course, 
while he was connected with it, was such as 
to create a cordial attachment, which lasted 
through life, between him and its board and 
officers. 

He was next invited to supply the pulpit of 
the Eev. Dr. Thomas H. Skinner in Philadel- 
phia, during his absence, and spent the sum- 
mer of the year last mentioned in the dis- 



38 ' MEMORIAL. 

charge of this duty. In these various employ- 
ments he had been gaining what he needed- 
experience, maturity, and knowledge of man- 
kind. 

In the autumn of the same year, he was in- 
vited to the Presbyterian church of Fayette- 
ville, in the State of South Carolina, and ac- 
<iepted the invitation. Before entering upon 
this new field of labor, he was ordained as a 
Presbyterian minister, by the Presbytery of 
New York, on the 24th day of November, 
1830, at the church of which the Rev. Mr. 
Carroll was pastor, in Brooklyn. The sermon 
on this occasion was preached by the Rev. Dr. 
Samuel H. Cos. Mr. Rowland immediately 
entered upon his ministerial duties at Fayette- 
ville, where he remained for about three years 
and a half, preaching with acceptance and suc- 
cess, and being greatly respected and beloved. 



MEMORIAL. 89 

In May, 1831, the disastrous, fire occurred 
which laid that whole city in ruins. This was 
an event which called forth the whole activ- 
ity and energy of Mr. Eowland's nature. In 
the conflagration itself, he was among the 
foremost and most intelligent in efforts to ar- 
rest the fiery deluge, blowing up buildings 
which lay in its path with his own hands. 
By his letters to the New York Journal of 
Commerce, and to the National Gazette, under 
his own signature, he was the first to give to 
the North tidings of this dire calamity. In 
his letter, under date of May 29th, 1831, to 
the editor of the latter newspaper, he gave the 
following vivid and affecting picture of the 
appalling devastation. 

" Sir — Fayetteville is no more ! This morn- 
ing the sun rose upon us in its beauty, and 
with gladdened' hearts we flocked to the 
churches of our God — now we are in ruins ! 



40 MEMORIAL. 

But two stores of all that this place contained 
are standing. The rest are entirely consumed. 
Nothing but stacks of tottering chimneys re- 
mains to tell what we once were. 

" Except in the outskirts of the town, and 
in those streets which are a little off from the 
centre of our town, not a dwelling-house re- 
mains. All the churches, with the exception 
of the Methodist, which is distant from the 
centre of the town, are destroyed. The 
academy, the two splendid hotels, our printing- 
offices, the two banks, the old state-house, 
every apothecary's shop, and some of our mills, 
are in ashes. 

"The fire communicated (it is supposed) 
from a chimney, precisely in the centre of the 
town, and spread with inconceivable rapidity 
through every street. It was just after the 
congregation had been dismissed, about half- 
past 12 o'clock, when the fire was first dis- 



MEMORIAL. 41 

covered, and in less than one hour and a half, 
our village was literally a "sea of flame." 
The goods were consumed in the streets, the 
engines were burnt at their stands. Some who 
had property removed to a distance in ex- 
pectation of safety, were disappointed ; too 
soon the devouring element reached them. 
The churches, though at a distance from each 
other, were soon in flames. The tall steeple 
of the Presbyterian church seemed a pyramid 
of fire ; for a while it stood firm — soon the bell 
descended with a crash — the steeple trembled, 
tottered, and fell. The Episcopal church, 
which apparently caught at the same time, was 
soon in ashes. 

" As I wandered through the outskirts of the 
place to administer relief, so far as possible, to 
the distressed, my heart sunk within me. The 
sick were borne out of their houses, and were 
lying on pallets in the street. Others, faint 



42 MEMORIAL. 

and exhausted, were reclining on the beds 
which had been thrown out. Every moment 
our ears were stunned with the explosion of 
powder, to demolish the buildings, which 
might stay the flames. But although many 
were thus levelled, there was not strength to 
pull the timbers from the reach of the con- 
flagration. 

" It is impossible to paint the heart-rending 
scenes which everywhere occurred. Parents 
were inquiring for their children, and children 
for their parents, and in every countenance 
reigned despair. 

" I have been round the fire in every direc- 
tion, and the above statements are the result 
of my own observation. From where I now 
write I can perceive, for the extent of nearly 
half a mile, the light which flashes up from 
the smouldering ruins. A very small portion 
of the property was insured. Most of the 



MEMORIAL. 43 

people lost their all ! Our distress may be par- 
tially imagined, but cannot be justly conceived 
of. Much bodily inj ury was experienced, but, 
so far as is at present known, no lives were 
lost. What results may be ascertained when 
our friends are collected, it is impossible to 
say." 

His letter to the New York Journal of 
Commerce, written on the next day after the 
fire, was still fuller and more affecting. Not 
only three churches and the other public build- 
ings already mentioned, but as nearly as could 
be estimated, one hundred and five stores, 
(being all but three in the town,) inde- 
pendently of warehouses, dwelling-houses, and 
out-houses of every description, and mills, 
occupying an area of about half a square mile, 
were burnt up, in all about six hundred build- 
ings, being consumed. The pecuniary loss 
was estimated at a million or a million and a 



44 MEMORIAL. 

half of dollars. " We are crowded together in 
the outskirts of the town," he says, " and many 
last night slept in the open air. The suffer- 
ings of our people must be immense; some of 
our wealthy citizens are stript of all their 
property, and have not where to lay their 
heads. Not even their clothes were saved. 
Though so far as can be ascertained, no lives 
were lost; yet so exhausted and faint were 
many that they threw themselves down upon 
whatever chanced to be near them, and others 
fell in the street and were obliged to be carried 
home. "We learn that numbers are sick ; and 
to complete our misfortunes, all our medicine 

shops and medicine are destroyed It 

is our hope, that by the blessing of Providence, 
before the season for the fall business is over, 
such provision may be made by our merchants 
for the carrying on of business, that our lives 
may be sustained, so that to the evils of beg- 



MEMORIAL. 45 

gary may not be added those of starvation." 
The whole country was roused to sympathy by 
this sad event and these touching appeals. 
Other accounts followed, or were published in 
other quarters. Mr. Eowland was soon at the 
North, by his conversation and addresses from 
the pulpit, making a deep impression in regard 
to this painful catastrophe ; and although his 
appeals were directly for aid to rebuild his 
own church, they necessarily led him to de- 
scribe the whole scene and to tell the whole 
moving story. Contributions flowed in from 
all parts of the country. Prompt measures 
were taken in Ealeigh and Wilmington to re- 
lieve the necessities of the sufferers. The 
merchants of Fayetteville were received with 
the greatest kindness by the merchants of New 
York, who notwithstanding their own severe 
losses by the fire, contributed liberally to the 
town, and assisted by the credit which they 



46 MEMORIAL. 

extended to the merchants of that place, to re- 
establish its business. The amount contrib- 
uted to the relief of the town was not far from 
a hundred thousand dollars, the larger portion 
of which, we presume, was from the North. 
The country, it must be remembered, was far 
less rich then than it is now. Some idea may 
be had of the difference by comparing the 
revenue and expenditures of the General Gov- 
ernment at that time with what they are at the 
present time. We can hardly be mistaken in 
attributing to Mr. Rowland a large part in the 
result shown in this generous bounty. 

Before a week from the day of the fire had 
expired, by a vote of the session of the Pres- 
byterian church, he was authorized and re- 
quested to solicit funds for rebuilding the 
church. They say with pathos : " Our world- 
ly substance is gone; and we desire more 
than ever to seek an enduring substance— a 



MEMORIAL. 47 

heavenly inheritance. But alas, we have no 
shelter but the "broad canopy of heaven, under 
which to meet and render praise and homage 
to the Most High." No part of the funds con- 
tributed for the relief of the town could, 
of course, be applied to that object, and 
the necessity of aid was more urgent that 
just before the fire a special and successful 
effort had been made to free the church from 
debt, so that the loss by the destruction of the 
edifice was absolute. Mr. Eowland at once 
came on to the North and visited Baltimore, 
New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, to- 
gether with different towns in New England 
and its vicinity, and from the pulpit and by 
personal solicitation, presented the case and 
appeal of his church and congregation ; and as 
every town where it was desirable to solicit aid 
could not be reached in this way, he prepared 
and sent to many churches a circular letter, 



48 MEMORIAL. 

with the appropriate text prefixed: « Our holy 
and our beautiful house where our fathers praised 
thee, is burned up with fire ; and all our pleasant 
things are laid waste." The appeal was suc- 
cessful. Liberal contributions for this object 
were made in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New 
York, Brooklyn, Hartford, Springfield, Troy, 
Boston, Newark, and many other places. The 
amount raised by Mr. Rowland for rebuilding 
the church was not less than from seven to 
nine thousand dollars. The funds collected 
were almost sufficient to rebuild both the 
church, which had originally cost about twenty- 
five thousand dollars, but of which the walls 
had been left standing by the fire, and the ses- 
sion-house, and on the 12th of August, 1831, 
the former reconstructed, was joyfully dedi- 
cated to the worship of Almighty God. Mr. 
Rowland, in his discourse delivered on that 
occasion and afterwards published, of which 



MEMORIAL. 49 

the theme was " The real glory of a church," 
from the text, " The glory of the latter house 
shall be greater than the glory of the former, 
saith the Lord of Hosts," pronounced the new 
edifice to be a monument of Christian benevo- 
lence, and a new evidence of God's goodness, 
and rendered the thanks of a grateful people 
to their benefactors. 

Although it fills some space, we could not 
resist giving this beautiful picture of sympathy 
and gratitude. The misfortune was almost 
unexampled, the liberality happily not so. 
The instances of Fayetteville and Norfolk 
show how the great heart of the nation really 
beats, and how it pours its blood to repair the 
wounded part, however diverse may be the 
circumstances and convictions of duty in dif- 
ferent parts of the country. 

Mr. Eowland continued his labors at Fayette- 
ville with great pleasure to himself, and as he 
3 



50 MEMORIAL. 

hoped not without profit to his people, and 
with strong mutual affection between them 
and himself, until the spring of 1834. Nothing 
ever occurred to disturb their harmony. His 
frankness and freedom and warmth of feeling 
were congenial with the Southern character. 
In 1833, through his efforts the Donaldson 
Academy was established at that place. On 
the fifteenth day of August of that } T ear he was 
married, at the city of New York, to Harriet 
Heyer, with whom he had become acquainted 
during his visit there in eighteen hundred and 
thirty-one. Her modesty will forbid me to 
say more than that she is the daughter of the 
late Isaac Heyer, a merchant of that city, and 
was the beloved and faithful wife of the hus- 
band whom she survives. Sorrow trod closely 
on the heels of gladness. Only three days af- 
ter his marriage his mother died at "Windsor, 
and he reached his father's house just in season 



MEMORIAL. 51 

to hear her last words, which were "my son," 
as he bent over and told her that he had come. 

Finding the doctrines of the Presbyterian 
church much misunderstood and misrepresent- 
ed, he preached and published this year a 
sermon entitled "The elect saved by faith," 
and in the following year he published "A 
conversation on decrees and free-agency," in 
the form of a familiar dialogue between James 
and John, a plain and forcible exposition of 
the doctrines of the Presbyterian confession 
of faith on these topics. Both of these publi- 
cations show much logical ability and discrimi- 
nation for his age. 

The North Carolina Presbyterian, a religious 
newspaper printed at Fayetteville, thus speaks 
of his ministry there : " Though twenty-five 
years have elapsed since he left Fayetteville^ 
his memory is tenderly cherished by many of 
our citizens, and sincere sorrow is expressed 



52 MEMORIAL. 

at his death. Here he began his regular min- 
istry, and his early labors were greatly blessed 
to the conversion of souls and the edification 
of the church. It was during his pastorate 
that the great fire of 1831 occurred, in which 
the Presbyterian house of worship was reduced 
to ashes. "We have learned that Mr. Kowland 
had intended resigning his charge about that 
time, but the calamitous event which deprived 
his people of their sanctuary changed his pur- 
pose, and he determined to remain and con- 
tinue his labors until the church was rebuilt. 
His ardor and enthusiastic energy were conta- 
gious, and his congregation entered with zeal 
upon the work of replacing the edifice. 
Through his influence, large contributions 
were obtained from abroad, and in a few 
months the house was erected, which remains 
to this day. 

" Three years after the building was erected, 



MEMORIAL. 53 

and chiefly through his agency, Mr. Eowland 
resigned the charge and accepted the call of 
the Pearl Street Church in New York. Truly 
the Presbyterians of Fayetteville owe him a 
heavy debt of gratitude, and not without rea- 
son have we heard the frequent expressions 
of unaffected grief from several of our older 
citizens duriDg the past week in view of his 

recent death 

" There are few churches in the Union, and 
in fact we cannot name one, which can point 
with honest^pride to. such a succession of able, 
faithful and godly ministers as the pastors of 
the Fayetteville church. Kerr, Eobinson, 
Flinn, the three Turners, Morrison, Snodgrass. 
Hanmer, Kirkpatrick, Eowland, and Gilchrist 
— this is the honored list whose names have 
graced her annals, and to whose virtues she re- 
fers with grateful affection." 



54 MEMORIAL. 

While he was at Fayetteville, and during 
the winter of 1833, he received two calls to 
churches in the city of New York; one of 
them was to be the colleague of the Rev. Dr. 
Mathews, pastor of the South Dutch Church, 
and the other to be the sole pastor of the Pearl 
Street Church in that city. The former he 
rejected, and the latter accepted. 

He was installed as pastor of the Pearl 
Street Church, April 17th, 1834. He labored 
here with great diligence and fidelity for about 
nine years. His life during that period was 
that of a faithful pastor, and for the most part 
unmarked with striking incidents. He was 
punctual, conscientious, and systematic. His 
sermons were clear and forcible, and generally 
expository* and argumentative, and were of a 
very uniform degree of excellence. He aimed 
not to amuse his hearers, but thoroughly to 
instruct them in the great principles of Chris- 



MEMORIAL. 55 

tianitj, and to lead them to accept and obey 
the truth. He dwelt a good deal on the 
responsibility and sinfulness of man, on the 
extent and perfection of the divine law, on the 
nature of the moral government of God and of 
his character, and on the necessity, sufficiency, 
and amplitude of the provisions of the gospel, 
while he did not omit to enforce constantly 
the practical duties of life. He patiently 
sought to remove difficulties by kindness, ex- 
planation and argument, and not by denuncia- 
tion ; and as by mixing freely with mankind 
he saw that there was a great deal of unsus- 
pected scepticism afloat in the current conver- 
sation of worldly men, so that the truths of 
the Bible glance off from many minds, because, 
while the authority of the Bible is not expressly 
denied, its truths, from a lurking, unexamin- 
ing scepticism, are doubted, or not admitted to 
be true, or perhaps wholly disbelieved, he en- 



56 MEMORIAL. 

deavored in the later years of his ministry in 
New York, by carefully tracing back to infidel 
writers the sayings of such men, to expose 
them in all their real deformity, 

" For no falsehood can endure 
Touch of celestial temper, but returns 
Of force to its own likeness," 

and bring them to the test of reason and good 
sense. 

His sermon-books, or records of sermons 
preached, which were neatly and regularly 
kept, show his great interest, an interest 
always- felt, in the attendance of his con- 
gregation at church, and here, as well as at 
Honesdale and Newark,- contain notices from 
Sabbath to Sabbath of such attendance and 
of the state of the weather or other circum- 
stances, and the earlier ones even occasionally 
of the absence of prominent men. Sometimes 



MEMORIAL. 57 

other memoranda were made in them, usually 
of the briefest possible character. At the 
close of 1837 this one occurs : 

" In the beginning of the year 1837, a 
protracted meeting was held every evening 
for two weeks. It resulted in the hopeful 
conversion of about fifteen or sixteen souls, 
chiefly of the young. The Lord be praised ! 
When I came to Pearl street church, there 
were only four individuals who were heads of 
families, who were unconverted, the building 
old, dark, and tomb-like. Providentially, it 
was burned in April [May], and we are 
about erecting a better in its place. My min- 
istry for three years and eight months up to 
this time has been pleasant, and I hope not 
without profit. Some left the church and 
joined the new church, corner of Crosby street 
and Grand. Some went to Duane street. 

But their places have been supplied by others 
3* 



58 MEMORIAL. 

who came in, so that the church remains in 
numbers about the same. Dec. 20, 1837." 

The destruction of the old edifice, which 
was by a fire caught from an adjacent build- 
ing, Mr. Eowland did not regret, as will 
appear by the following entry made at the 
time : " May 2nd, Old Pearl street burnt at 
five o'clock this morning, whereat we re- 
joice." 

He knew that the society would never 
flourish within its uninviting walls. This 
deprivation of a place of worship was, how- 
ever, a new call for energy, and it was well 
and cheerfully met. He had his people to 
keep together as far as possible, under new 
and difficult circumstances, and he had to 
assume new responsibilities. His congrega- 
tion were invited to meet in the Bowery 
church, at the corner of the Bowery and 
Walker street, about three quarters of a mile 



MEMORIAL. 50 

distant from the site of the Pearl street church, 
and the Bowery church having no pastor, 
both congregations met together as one. He 
ministered to the joint congregation from 
June 4th, 1837, to October 7th, 1838, or for 
about sixteen months, when the Bowery 
church having been occupied by a new Con- 
gregational church, his own congregation were 
" doomed to wander for three Sabbaths," and 
then met in the lecture-room in the basement 
of the new' church. On the 14th of April, 
1839, nearly two years after the old building 
had been destroyed, the new edifice, a large 
and commodious but neat and plain structure 
of brick, was dedicated to divine worship. 
The old building was insured at the time of 
the fire, but the new one was unfortunately 
left under a heavy debt. The locality, although 
hardly a block east from Broadway, bordered 
on the worst part of the city, and was particu- 



60 MEMORIAL. 

larly unattractive, and it was almost under the 
shadow of the spacious Broadway Tabernacle, 
which threw its doors open freely to all. The 
church, though virtually Presbyterian, was 
nominally and perhaps legally an Associate Re- 
formed church, in connection with the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian church, and its 
name as an Associate Reformed church, which 
could be only attractive to the members of 
a small denomination, if, under the circum- 
stances, to any, was conspicuously inscribed 
on the new edifice. The prospect was not 
very auspicious, therefore, for the external 
prosperity of the church. But Mr. Rowland 
met bravely, and with his usual good spirits 
and generosity, all difficulties. At his settle- 
ment, he received the bond of responsible 
trustees, for his annual salary of two thousand 
dollars, but having some other means for the 
support of his family, he subscribed every 



MEMORIAL. 61 

year largely towards the expenditures of the 
society, and in one instance at least the 
sum of five hundred dollars. Wherever he 
was, he always endeavored by precept and 
example to educate his people to liberality to 
benevolent objects. Daring his residence in 
New York, the centre of so many benevolent 
operations, he took a warm and active interest 
in such operations. 

On the 12th of July, 1841, the Broadway 
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, its pastor, 
Dr. Joel Parker, having accepted the Presi- 
dency of the Union Theological Seminary in 
the city of New York, united with the Pearl 
street church. Of that seminary, Mr. Eowland 
was one of the original and earnest promoters. 

In this year his heart was gladdened by the 
union of about seventy with his church, thir- 
ty-four on the profession of their faith and the 
rest on letter or certificate from other churches. 



62 MEMORIAL. 

Of these, thirty-five were admitted on a single 
Sabbath in March, twenty-five of them on the 
profession of their faith. His labors in other 
years of his ministry in New York were not 
unrewarded, but not to the same degree or as 
he wished. We cannot enter into details. He 
labored hard to induce those to become relig- 
ious who were not so, and anxiously watched 
each sign of awakened interest. He warned 
and instructed with fidelity and constancy, re- 
lying not upon arts or eloquence, but upon 
God himself, to give efficacy to his truth, when 
clearly expounded and faithfully taught. 

He went everywhere and was familiarly ac- 
quainted with all his congregation and their cir- 
cumstances, and met the poorest with heartfelt 
and unpretending sympath}-, and readiness for 
their relief. His active habits continued to 
him in vigor what clergymen are apt to lose, 
health ; and in his annual visits to his native 



MEMORIAL. 63 

place, or on two or three warm days of mid- 
autumn, he would steal away with his rod and 
line and a pleasant companion, to enjoy the 
open air, the beautiful face of Nature, and to 
take the finny prey. He regarded himself as 
in this respect of true Apostolical descent, and 
had a seal which he sometimes used, with ap- 
propriate emblematic device and the words 
" piscatores hominum" fishers of men. In 
May, 1842, he notes that he was sick-a-bed, 
the first time he believes he was ever pre- 
vented from being in the pulpit by ill health. 

The city could not make him artificial, or 
otherwise than guileless, though 'it gave him 
that knowledge of the world, which few cler- 
gymen possess, and made it. not easy to deceive 
him by shallow pretension. 

His frank and good-humored manners, and 
his steady, upright course, made him many 
friends, and gave him a wide influence in the 



64 MEMORIAL. 

city out of his own congregation. His breth- 
ren in the ministry will tell what confidence 
they had in him, and what respect and affection 
for him. 

For many years while he resided in New 
York, he was the recording clerk of the Synod 
of New York and New Jersey. He was strong- 
ly opposed to the exscinding act, by which 
four Synods were cut off from the Presbyte- 
rian church, and by which the denomination 
was cleft in twain ; and in the separation, which, 
attended with much bitterness at the time, has 
resulted perhaps in the unexpected growth and 
prosperity of both branches of the church, he 
adhered with his own church to what was 
called the New School or Constitutional As- 
sembly. 

In November, 1835, about two years and a 
half after his mother, his father died. But in 
his own hospitable home, in pleasant inter- 



MEMORIAL. 65 

course with two brothers residing in the city, 
and with the family of his mother-in-law, 
daughters of whom the Rev. Dr. John Forsyth 
and the late Rev. Dr. Abraham Polhemus also 
married, in the circles of friendship and in the 
pursuit of the great objects of his calling, his 
heart found room to expand and was gratified. 
Pecuniary difficulties, however, continued to 
press upon his congregation. The tide of pop- 
ulation, which has now almost left bare of 
church-going people the lower part of the city 
and swept along with it nearly all the churches, 
had begun to roll strongly up town. Under 
the circumstances which were found to exist, 
Mr. Rowland thought he might be more use- 
ful elsewhere, and instead of contending with 
those circumstances as he might, unexpectedly 
called a meeting of the congregation, and on 
the seventh day of January, 1843, laid before 
them his resignation of the charge of Pearl street 



66 MEMORIAL. 

church. The congregation by a lage vote ex- 
pressed their confidence in him, their attachment 
to him, their belief in the soundness of his doc- 
trines, and their regret at parting with him, but 
as he desired acquiesced in his determination. 

He commenced his ministry in Honcsdale, 
in the State of Pennsylvania, on the 7th of 
May, 1843. 

This is a fine village, or borough, in the 
county of Wayne, in that State, then of per- 
haps two or three thousand, now of five or 
six thousand inhabitants, lying on the Lacka- 
waxen, a branch of the Delaware river, not 
far from the great coal region, and at the head 
of the Delaware and Hudson canal. It is en- 
circled and nearly enclosed by hills, and has a 
thriving population of which a considerable 
part, at least of the earlier inhabitants and 
their descendants, is of New England origin. 

This was the scene of Mr. Rowland's ardent 



MEMORIAL. 67 

and earnest labors for more than twelve years 
and a half. While he lived here, his principal 
works were prepared for the press and pub- 
lished. He spent here many happy days of 
widening influence and usefulness. 

After an absence for a short time at Phila- 
delphia, in attendance on the General Assem- 
bly, and its Committee ad interim, of which he 
was clerk, he was installed as the pastor of the 
Presbyterian church at Honesdale, on the 14th 
of June, 1843. At the time of his settlement 
the church was in a depressed and distracted 
condition. But it had given him a unanimous 
call, which he had deemed it as his duty to 
accept, and under his bold and faithful minis- 
try it became strong and flourishing. 

While he was its pastor it was blessed with 
three or four revivals of religion, during which, 
some of his own children were hopefully con- 
verted and brought into the church. One 



.MEMORIAL. 



of these was in the winter of 1844. A series 
of special meetings was held, commencing in 
January of that year. Mr. Rowland's labors 
during this winter were very arduous. Up to the 
25th of February of that year he had preached 
almost every day at Honesdale, or at Carbon- 
dale, and Prompton. On the 3d of the follow- 
ing March, thirty-seven were added to the 
church at Honesdale, thirty -four of .them on 
the profession of their faith. At the close of 
the year he thus records the result. "A 
blessed year, fifty admitted to the church, forty- 
one on profession. God, I bless thee for the 
fruit of my ministry the past year. Oh, may the 
coming year be more abundant in the harvest of 
souls, and thine shall be the glory." We do 
not hesitate to let the perfume of these pious 
breathings float over our pages, for we know 

that Mr. Rowland was too honest and sincere 

» 

a man to express in these private memoranda 



MEMORIAL. 69 

anything but what he felt. He was not accus- 
tomed to speak of his own personal experi- 
ence or feelings on the subject of religion. 

In 1847 there was some special interest in 
his congregation on that subject, and about 
twenty were admitted to the church during 
that year. He says of it : "A pleasant minis- 
terial year, not unprofitable, I hope. Every- 
thing quiet and peaceful." In the year 1848, 
the church having become too small for his 
congregation, a subscription of nearly three 
thousand dollars was made to repair and en- 
large it, and to pay off the debt. The edifice 
in its increased dimensions was enclosed in the 
autumn of this year, and " enlarged and beau- 
tified," was opened in July of the following 
year, and all the pews taken. But Mr. Eow- 
land mourned over the want of the like spirit- 
ual prosperity. During this year he had re- 
peated applications from the Central Presbyte- 



70 ItBMORlAI* 

rian church of Philadelphia for leave to give 
him a call, but he declined 

He began hia record of sermona for the fol- 
lowing year with the invocation, "0 let thy 
Holy Spirit descend upon us, Lord! God, 
granl thy grace to thy ; thee, 

that this year may I spiritual I 

iiig.'' So it proved. Th< revival of 

religion in the winter and spring. Thirty-four 
joined the church during the year; twenty- 
eight of them on the profession of their faith. 
He calls it* " a blessed and peaceful y< 
As lie records the progress of the revival 
from time to time, his feelings of gratitude to 
God break out in the simple and terse expres- 
sion of praise to God. 

There was also a revival of religion in his 
congregation in the year 1853. We venture 
to give some of his brief memoranda of it, not 
so much because they contain anything new, 



MEMORIAL. 71 

as because they are characteristic of the man 
and bring the scene vividly before us. " Jan. 
9. Yery full — a work of grace begun." " Jan. 

16. Many at inquiry meeting, and P and 

others rejoicing in hope." "Jan. 28. Full. 
Lecture and inquiry meeting, Saturday even- 
ing. 35 inquirers, many converts." "Jan. 
31. Lecture-room full. The work of grace 
advancing." "Feb. 11. As full as can be. 
Over thirty are indulging hope. And the 
work is advancing with power." "Feb. 18. 
There are about fifty hoping — a blessed time." 
" Feb. 25. Meetings every P. M. at 4, and 
every evening at 7 — forty-five or more hoping. 
Laus Deo." "March 6. Meetings at 4 \ P. M., 
which have been held for two months, sus- 
pended. . . . Between 50 and 60 hoping ; 
several converted last week. Laus Deo." 
"May 1. Yery full. A very pleasant com- 
munion. 23 admitted — 20 on profession, 2 on 



72 MEMORIAL. 

certificate." At the close of the year he sums 
it up thus: "A blessed and peaceful year. 
Forty-nine received to the church — thirty-nine 
on profession of their faith." We intend to 
give only salient points in this sketch, but we 
think that it would be incomplete unless we 
laid bare to some degree his inner life. 

Mr. Rowland's style of preaching changed 
somewhat while he was at Honesdale. His 
discourses alwa} r s eminently appealed to the 
reason, but the style of his sermons grew less 
formal and more simple, bolder, more forcible 
and impressive. It was not fastidious, and 
sometimes perhaps in the haste of preparation 
the minor graces of style were sacrificed to 
energy of expression or the supposed aptness 
of an illustration, but it was that of a man of 
earnestness and reflection, who would instruct, 
convince and persuade in regard to truths of 
unspeakable importance. 



MEMORIAL. 73 

He assumed at once at Honesdale a position 
correspondent with the courage and decision 
of his character, and his recognized ability. A 
man of his decided opinions, who held them so 
fearlessly and expressed them so freely, could 
not be expected to live entirely without con- 
flict. Whatever might be the hazard to him- 
self, he was always determined to remove 
everything which was an obstacle or which 
appeared to him to be an obstacle to the great 
object of his life. He usually considered this 
duty as urgent, and the time and place of per- 
forming it as the present. He did not there- 
fore hesitate nor delay, but bravely met the 
demand as it arose, with -the whole force of his 
nature. 

With all his great kindness of heart and his 
conciliatory spirit, Mr. Eowland did not shrink 
from controversy. His discourses were almost 
uniformly on the great, leading truths of Chris- 



74 MEMORIAL. 

tianity, and though expounding these truths, 
and defending and enforcing them by vigorous 
arguments drawn from reason and revelation 
brought home to the heart and the life, were 
rarely what would be commonly called con- 
troversial. But while teaching and strenuous- 
ly advocating the vital principles of his faith, 
he was ever ready to defend, and lie did de- 
fend, with ability and spirit, his standing and 
rights as a minister of the gospel against what 
he regarded as exclusive claims, the system of 
doctrines and the polity of the Presbyterian 
church, and his own freedom of thought and 
action ; and he sought also to expose the 
subtle forms of infidel error, which he thought 
he saw gliding under the innocent flowers of 
popular instruction. The deification of hu- 
manity is indeed but a monstrous form of self- 
idolatry. 

A gentleman, -whom we are happy to call a 



MEMORIAL. 75 

friend — one whose position and character give 
weight to his opinions — thus speaks more 
fully of the occasion to which we particularly 
allude : " When Infidelity made its appearance 
in Honesdale in the garb of a minister of 
Christ, widely renowned for his genius, his 
learning, his wit, and his eloquence, all who 
knew and loved the Truth must have rejoiced 
to see one so ready to meet the foe, and so 
able to resist him. 

" We refer here to the visit which Mr. Theo- 
dore Parker made to Honesdale. He went 
there ostensibly as a lecturer, but his lecture 
was very adroitly filled even to repletion with 
'Parkerism.' Whether Mr. Parker violated 
the proprieties of the time and place, it is not 
necessary for us to decide. It is enough to 
know that he brought out some of his peculiar 
views, and in a way well-fitted to captivate 
those who were not ' grounded and settled in 



76 MEMORIAL. 

the faith of the gospel.' Dr. Rowland deemed 
this an occasion in which he was specially 
called upon to ' stand up for Jesus,' and for his 
gospel, and he accordingly preached, as we 
have been assured, with marked ability and 
success, a series of sermons, in which he show- 
ed the real nature and influence of the princi- 
ples which Mr. Parker has so boldly avowed." 

Mr. Rowland's efforts were not confined to 
the pulpit. He unfolded and vindicated his 
opinions through the public prints and by 
more formal publications. By these means 
he made a strong impress of his character and 
sentiments upon the community. 

We could not omit this feature of his life 
at Honesdale without failing to give a just 
representation of the period of his ministry 
there. "We intend, however, to take only a 
single glance in that direction, and not to enter 
upon the particular points in question, nor to 



MEMORIAL. 77 

awaken any feelings springing out of any of 
these controversies which may better sleep. 
In the heat of discussion, useful as it often is, 
and necessary as it may be to the cause of 
truth, some things are almost always said on 
both sides which might better have been un- 
said. Mr. Eowland wielded a vigorous pen, 
and entered with his whole heart into whatever 
he undertook. 

His liberality of feeling may be inferred 
from his readiness to unite on equal terms 
with members of other denominations in plans 
for doing good, from clergymen of other de- 
nominations being invited to preach for him 
and preaching for him on his invitation, and 
from the circumstance that for three months 
in the year 1849 the pulpit of his church was 
occupied alternately by himself and the pastor 
of the Methodist church in Honesdale, while 
the edifice of that church was being enlarged. 



78 MEMORIAL. 

His personal charities not small, and often un- 
known even to his own family at the time and 
until after his death, were not confined to those 
of his own denomination, but flowed freely 
beyond it. 

We may mention also as an evidence of 
both the prosperity and the liberal spirit of the 
society of which he was pastor, that in the 
year 1852, besides its contributions to the 
Bible Society, it contributed over one thousand 
dollars to benevolent objects, of which three 
hundred and twenty-five dollars were to Home 
Missions, and three hundred dollars to Foreign 
Missions ; and in the year 1854, similar, though, 
somewhat larger sums, for Home and Foreign 
Missions, besides tlie sums contributed for 
other objects. 

His labors and influence extended far be- 
yond his own congregation. He preached not 
only in his own church, but in numerous places 



MEMORIAL. 79 

in the vicinity of Honesdale, often preaching 
in his own church in the morning and evening 
of the Sabbath, and in one of these neighboring 
places in the afternoon. He advised, sustained 
and encouraged the Home Missionary, employ- 
ed by the Presbytery within its bounds. 
When others fainted, he persevered; when 
others were tired, he was not exhausted. His 
hopeful, unflinching nature rose above dis- 
couragements. Buoyant, good-humored and 
active, in the fulness of health and energy, 
with a warm sympathetic heart, always zealous 
for the extension of the kingdom of Christ, he 
made himself felt in all the surrounding region. 
He was successful in building up ten or twelve 
churches, besides his own, within the bounds 
of his Presbytery ; we mean, by his efforts di- 
rect and indirect, with the concurrence and 
assistance of others. 

An incident may be mentioned connected 



80 MEMORIAL. 

with these labors, which indicates their effi- 
ciency, and illustrates a trait of Mr. Eowland's 
character. Although frank and open in 
speech, decided in his opinions, and ener- 
getic in conduct, Mr. Eowland was wise 
and moderate in his course of action, a 
safe adviser and efficient aid. He was once 
informed by the Home Missionary, who 
was accustomed to preach at different places 
within the boundaries of the Presbytery, that 
he was in trouble, that his ajDpointments were 
interfered with ; that he had given notice of 
an appointment to preach on Sabbath after- 
noon at a particular time and place, and that 
afterwards the Universalists had " put an ap- 
pointment on the back of it" for the same 
hour and place. He said that Mr. Eowland 
must preach for him; that he was just the man 
for the occasion. Mr. Eowland assented, and, 
after preaching at some other place in the 



MEMORIAL. 81 

morning, arrived at the designated spot at the 
time of the afternoon service. He found the 
Universalist clergyman in the pulpit, and an 
audience of Universalists and others already 
assembled. Proceeding to the pulpit, Mr. 
Eowland said, that he believed the Presby- 
terians had an appointment there that after- 
noon. The Universalist clergyman said, No. 
The Universalists held a meeting there. Mr. 
Eowland replied, that the Presbyterians 
certainly had such an appointment, but the 
other persisting, quietly remarked : Then you 
can preach, and I will sit down and listen to 
you, and I will afterwards deliver my sermon. 
He accordingly took his seat and heard the 
Universalist clergyman's sermon ; then imme- 
diately ascending into the pulpit, he announced 
that a sermon had been appointed by the Pres- 
byterians there for that afternoon, which he 

would now deliver. He requested those who 
4* 



82 MEMORIAL. 

did not wish to remain during the delivery of 
the sermon to retire at that time, that there 
might bo no interruption. Two or three 
only went out. 

He then preached a discourse from the text : 
"For our God is a consuming fire." He showed 
that the punishment of the wicked was not 
necessarily physical, though represented by 
physical images, depicted the horrors of an 
awakened and sleepless conscience, and showed 
how the conscience itself might be the instru- 
ment of unspeakable torture, and powerfully 
urged the scriptural argument for the eternal 
duration of the punishment of the obstinately 
wicked. When the sermon was finished, he 
closed the services. The Universalist clergy- 
man, who had returned Mr. Rowland's courtesy 
by remaining while he preached, offered him 
his hand with apparent agitation, and said 
that that sermon must have been prepared for 



MEMORIAL. 83 

the occasion. Mr. Eowland informed him 
that it had been written some years before. 
The audience retired, commenting on the two 
discourses. Mr. Eowland's made so deep an 
impression as to annihilate Universalism or 
its influence in the place, and the Home Mis- 
sionary had no further trouble in that quarter. 
• Mr. Eowland's solidity of judgment, and 
his capacity for business and knowledge of the 
modes of doing it, as well as his energy, 
activity, decision, determination and steady 
perseverance made his services valuable in all 
enterprises of this nature. His uprightness 
and fairness, his pleasant and amusing conversa- 
tion, must have often disarmed prejudice and 
opposition, while his clear and forcible argu- 
ments produced conviction. 

Honesdale was the scene, not only of the 
active, but most of the literary labors of Mr. 
Eowland. In 1850 he published an octavo 



8± MEMORIAL. 

volume of about three hundred pages, " On 
the common maxims of Infidelity." The title 
is not an attractive one, but the work itself is 
of much merit, and has been highly approved 
by competent judges. The late Dr. Leonard 
Woods of Andover said of it: " There is no 
work, so far as I know, which is written on a 
similar plan, or which does so briefly and effec- 
tually undermine and demolish the super- 
structure of modern infidelity. The author 
deserves the thanks of the public for the 
labor he has bestowed on so difficult a subject, 
and for writing a book containing in three hun- 
dred pages so much pertinent thought, and so 
much conclusive argument, which is all the 
better for being so condensed." The contents of 
the book had been the subject of meditation and 
stud}- to Mr. Rowland for many years. It dis- 
cusses the common maxims of worldly men, 
lays bare their infidel character, and refutes 



MEMORIAL. 85 

them with much practical sense and vigor of 
argument. 

In 1851 he published that well-known little 
work, a duodecimo volume of one hundred 
and eighty pages, bearing the title of " The 
Path of Life." It grew out of his own pastoral 
experience, and was especially intended to lead 
awakened souls, inquiring after truth, to the 
Saviour and into the path of Life. Its great 
simplicity, its earnest, friendly expostulations, 
its weighty and appropriate truths, its direct, 
plain and scriptural reasonings, and its practical 
wisdom and good sense, have given it wide 
circulation and great usefulness. A second 
and revised edition of this little volume, with 
some illustrative facts from his own experience 
as a pastor, was soon published. Mr. Eowland, 
with great candor and good-humor, and a 
remarkable freedom from sensitiveness and 
pride, sought and accepted the aid of friendly 



86 MEMORIAL. 

criticism in respect to his books, both before 
and after they passed through the press. In- 
telligence has been constantly coming from 
every quarter of the country, of the useful- 
ness of this volume, and of the blessing of 
God that has attended the perusal of its pages. 
The opening chapter, " A Call to the Wanderer," 
is one of the most impressive and striking 
appeals in the language. 

In 1851 he published another small duo- 
decimo work, with the rather quaint title of 
" Light in a Dark Alley." It is designed to 
remove special difficulties on the subject of 
religion, and the argument is conducted with 
much simplicity and force. 

In 1854 he published a larger work, entitled 
" The Way of Peace." It contains instructions 
for the Christian course, and is a plain, sensible 
and judicious treatise on the Christian life and 
duties. " The Path of Life" leads the sinner 



MEMORIAL. 87 

to the Saviour ; " The Way of Peace" conducts 
the Christian to heaven. 

Many letters were received by Dr. Eowland, 
from different parts of the country, which bore 
testimony to the good these works had done 
and were doing. While he was lying on the 
bed of death at Boston, his heart was glad- 
dened by the intelligence sent to him from 
central New York, of the happy influence 
exerted by the " Path of Life" upon one of 
the Presbyterian churches of that region. A 
gentleman who resided in Wilmington, in the 
state of Delaware, wrote to him : 

"I have just finished the perusal of the 
Way of Peace, and I wish I could convey in 
language the emotions of gratitude I feel to- 
wards you for writing such a book. I have 
been a member of the Presbyterian church 
four years, and while I can testify by a happy 
experience that His service is a rich reward, 



88 MEMORIAL. 

yet I often mourn on account of the clouds 
and darkness that overshadow my way ; and, 
indeed, I have had little of that peace of 
which you speak. I really feel that your book 
was written for mc, and in reading it have 
often asked myself the question — ' How could 
he know my heart so well '!' J pray that I may 
be led to act upon the truth so ight, 

and would fondly hope that those who, like 
myself, are halting in the way, seeking, desir- 
ing to know more, yet enjoying little, could 
meet with your directions, and be led by the 
Spirit of all grace into that perfect way." 

Another gentleman wrote to him from Bos- 
ton: — " Most happily, a few days since I met a 
little work, written by you, called Light in a 
Dark Alley. This little volume has, of a 
truth, closely met my state, aDd touched me 
very nearly ; and I cannot but desire to ex- 
press to you my grateful sense and appreciation 



MEMORIAL. 89 

of its work. In my youth. I was brought up 
under the doctrines of ' the Trinity.' But in 
after years I passed from them, to repose 
under the intellectual glare of Unitarianism. 
Here, with my heart, conscience, and spiritual 
life pushed aside, thinking that in the dis- 
charge of moral duties I was performing all 
duties, I lulled myself into a perfect security, 
from which at last I was startled. Unitarianism 
starved me; and although I heard its most 
eloquent teachers, yet daily I found my spirit- 
ual life shrivelling up within me ; for though 
hungry for bread, they gave me only stones. At 
a more mature period of my life, I felt that my 
salvation depended on my escape from these 
deadening doctrines. With my wife I attached 
myself to the "New Church," or Swedenbor- 
gian society in this city (Boston). They spoke 
to me of the ' Divinity of Christ,' — 'that He was 
the 'Lord in Divine Humanity,' — that true 



90 MEMORIAL. 

life depended on 'Loving our neighbor as 
ourselves,' and 'Putting away Evils as Sins.' 
I gathered all books bearing on their doctrines 
which were obtainable, and for some three years 

have been a serious, and I humbly trust, an 
improved reader. But the : New Church' is 
dead, and therefore its teachings cannot infuse 

life. When the Saviour was on earth, lie 
taught men to do something; if to be healed, 
they were to ' stretch out their hand,' — to ' go 
wash.' The Unitarians fed my intellect, but 
hungered my soul. The Swedenborgians fill 
me to repletion with doctrines, but give me no 
guidance to life ; they do not give what my 
spirit restlessly cries for. As I before said, 
your little book touched we very nearly ; so 
that it warmed my heart, and of a truth Light 
streamed into a Dark Alley.*' Both of these 
writers were strangers to Dr. Rowland, and 
evidently wrote from the fulness of their 



MEMORIAL. 91 

hearts, and from a deep sense of the benefits 
which they had received from the perusal of 
these works. 

Besides these works, he published a small 
tract on Christian baptism, and several ser- 
mons in pamphlet form,* in addition to those 

* Only two of Mr. Rowland's sermons were published, 
we believe, while he resided in New York, — one delivered in 
1840, on the anniversary of our national independence, and 
another, a funeral sermon on the death of Rev. David R. 
Downer, 1841. While he was at Honesdale, sermons by 
him on the following subjects were published, in pamphlet 
form: "The distinctive Features of Presbyterianism as ex- 
hibited in the Confession of Faith," in 1844 ; " The Char- 
acteristics of a Pious Woman's Heart : a sermon preached 
at the dedication of the lecture-room of the Presbyterian 
church, Honesdale, Pa.," in 1848 ; "The Murderer and his 
Fate" in the same year ; " Christian Liberty, or the elements 
of civil and religious liberty, growing out of the doctrine of 
justification by faith in contrast with civil and religious des- 
potism, originating in the high pretensions of prelacy," in 
1850 ; "The True Principle of Christian Unity" in the same 
year. ' ' The Excellency of our Christian Polity, a discourse 
delivered before the Synod of New York and New Jersey, in 
Bloomfield, New Jersey," and published by direction of the 
Synod, in 1851. In 1854 he also published an essay which 



92 MEMORIAL. 

published in the newspapers. Be wrote also 
frequently for the public prims. He m 
opinion that I 
powerful an Instrument of influence an 

doing good to i • 

means of it to enlarge the circle of I 
and to Bpread around him an atmosphere 

genial with his own feelings and opin 

None of these labors quelled his spirits or 
diminished the frankness and cheei 
his disposition. His success rather inspirited 
and emboldened him. Study never made him 
less companionable. The country around 
Honesdale was tempting for his favorite sport, 
and for relief he would occasionally wa 
with his hook ami fly through "the valleys 

originally appeared in tin i :i " The Church and 

Slavery, or the relations of the churches to slavery under the 
Constitution ; considered in reference to the constitutionality 
of the action of the General Assembly at Buffalo, A. D. 
1853." 



MEMORIAL. 93 

that run among the hills," along the mountain 
stream, or the ponds that gather the crystal 
bounty of heaven to reflect its image. He 
entered with enthusiasm into the amusement, 
and counted up his prizes on a good day with 
true fisherman's pride. 

We wish that we could give a correct im- 
pression of this eventful period of his life. 
The following extract will show how the gene- 
ral aspect of things around him, struck a 
gentleman of the same profession and of high 
standing in it. "At one time, when I was at 
Honesdale, I visited him at his residence, and 
could not but admire the many marks of his ac- 
tivity and usefulness, both in his congregation, 
and among the people generally. He seemed 
to be acquainted with every body, rich and poor, 
old and young, on terms of cordial friendship 
with all, and ready to promote their best 
interests in every way." His favorite horse 



94 MEMORIAL, 

Kate, when not in use by himself, stood all 
day at the door ready for service. During his 
residence at Honesd lef of 

thewholefa.mil] After trying 

in vain the usual methods, he took a novel »>ne 
to recover her. Ee wrote under bis own 
nature to the editor of on 

spapers a humorous Letter, 
count of his Loss, and an amusing and - 

iption of Kate, and her qualities and 
habits. The letter was republished, and circu- 
lated far and wide in the public prints, and 
gave its author a new celebrity. 

This humorous letter was the means of re- 
covering the cherished companion of his labors. 
It met the eye of the purchaser, livii 
distant place in New Jersey, who recog: 
the stolen animal in his own barn from the 
graphic and amusing description given of her. 
He wrote to Mr. Rowland, and Kate soon re- 



MEMORIAL. , 95 

turned, to resume her round of ministerial 
duty. 

In July, 1854, he received a unanimous call 
to the Green Hill Presbyterian Church in 
Philadelphia, and he soon after declined it. 
In the same year Union College conferred on 
him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. On the 
twenty-first of October, 1855, at the close of 
the session of the Synod of New York and 
New Jersey, which met at the city of New 
York, he preached at Park Church, Newark, 
and on the second of November in that 
year the society of that church voted unani- 
mously to give him a call. This call he 
thought it his duty to accept. His congrega- 
tion in Honesdale by a unanimous vote re- 
quested him to reconsider his determination. 
But further reflection not changing his pur- 
pose, he closed his ministry at Honesdale on 
the sixteenth of December, 1855. With strong 



96 MEMORIAL. 

expressions on the part of his church of un- 
feigned gratitude to God for the experience of 
the last twelve years and of undiminished con- 
fidence in him, and with many tokens of 
affection and regard to himself and family, he 
says, " in the fear and blessing of God we left " 
Honesdale. 

"VYe now approach the scene of his last la- 
bors. The thought saddens us, and we must 
be brief. He was strongly attached to the 
place and the people of Honesdale, and remain- 
ed so during his life. He revisited that place 
with great pleasure. Thus in the summer of 
1857 he notes that with some members of his 
family he 'had spent three Sabbaths there, 
" days long to be remembered." His attach- 
ment was warmly returned by his people, and 
when the call to Xewark was taken by him 
into serious and favorable consideration, his 
heart was +' oppressed " with the thought of 



MEMORIAL. 97 

leaving those whom he loved. And when, as. 
the danger of his doing so became known, 
solicitations and expressions of affection poured 
in upon him from his congregation, it was al- 
most too much for a man of his warm heart to 
resist. But the deep sense of duty sustained 
him in the struggle, and finally triumphed. 
"I see," he said, " what I think is a field ap- 
propriate for me, and where I may be useful." 
Dr. Eowland began his regular labors at 
Park Church, -Newark, on the twenty-third 
day of December, 1855, and was installed as 
the minister of that church on the twenty -third 
day of January, 1856. His ministry of more 
than three years and a half at that place was 
not marked by striking events, but we believe 
that all who know the facts and are competent 
to judge of them, think that he did a great work 
there. At the time of his settlement the church 

was small, and before his call its elements, 
5 



9£ MEMORIAL. 

happily united in himself and harmonized by 
his judicious course of action, had been dis- 
united, and to some extent in conflict. The 
society itself was "laboring under difficulties 
which, unless speedily remedied, threatened 
as some thought to issue in serious embarrass- 
ments. But Dr. Rowland saw here an impor- 
tant point to be maintained, and a church to be 
built up. The aspect of things would have 
appeared discouraging to one of less resolute 
spirit than himself, or less assured by expe- 
rience of his own powers and resources, or less 
confiding in the efficacy of the divine word, 
accompanied by the influences of the divine 
Spirit. He sought not repose, he pleaded not 
weariness from past labors, he despised inac- 
tion. He held himself " at the service of the 
church," and like a good and tried soldier con- 
sidered the place where the heaviest blows 
were needed as appropriate for him. 



MEMORIAL. 99 

At Honesdale he was pleasantly situated, 
and lie had a wide and commanding influence. 
But in the successive revivals there a large 
part of the youth and other members of his 
congregation had been brought into the church ; 
and in a new and untried field he hoped that 
he might do more good in his Master's service 
than he could in one which he had already 
reaped. 

We are indebted to a member of his church 
at Newark for the following account of his 
ministerial labors while he was pastor of that 
church : 

"When Dr. Eowland came to Park Church, 
Newark, the congregation was small, and the 
general condition of the church such as to 
create distrust and doubt rather than the cer- 
tainty of success. There was much to dis- 
courage any one who was not fully prepared 
to meet difficulties. At the same time the 



100 MEMORIAL. 

point was an important one, and the location 
and the increasing demand for accommodation 
in the Presbyterian churches in Newark pre- 
sented inducements to one who was willing to 
make the sacrifice necessary to place the 
church in a firm and substantial position. 

"Dr. Rowland had received a unanimous 
call. The point of duty had been fully set- 
tled by him, the importance of the work to 
be accomplished being the main reason of his 
accepting the call. He possessed all the fire 
and energy of youth, with the experience of 
age, and a trustful reliance upon the great 
Head of the church for that blessing, without 
which human instrumentalities must fail. The 
work to be performed was similar to that 
attending a new enterprise; its elements re- 
quired harmonizing and strengthening. He 
turned his earnest efforts to this work ; infused 
his own spirit into those with whom he came 



MEMORIAL. 101 

in contact, and new vigor was imparted to 
every department of the church. The congre- 
gation increased, and many members were 
added to the church both by profession and by 
certificate from other churches. 

" He felt the need of a suitable place for the 
ordinary weekly meetings, and as no lecture- 
room had been provided, a room was procured 
for this purpose, and plans devised to secure 
the necessary funds for building a lecture- 
room. The people responded to the call for 
that object. The funds were raised and a neat 
building erected adjoining the church. The 
church was at the same time beautifully 
frescoed. 

" These evidences of progress and enterprise 
were pleasing to Dr. Eowland ; but while he 
valued these evidences of prosperity and in- 
creased facilities for usefulness, they seemed 
only to increase his efforts and anxieties for 



102 MEMORIAL. 

that higher and truer development in his 
people of spiritual growth. He visited his 
people, calling upon them at their homes and 
at their places of business, and embracing 
every opportunity to impress upon men the 
one great and important duty of attending to 
their spiritual interests. With him religion 
was the one great duty of daily life, and as 
properly introduced into the workshop or 
counting-room as into the parlor or the pulpit. 
He clothed religion in no austere or formal 
garb, but made it rather the one great source 
of joy and cheerful hope. 

"As an admirer of the mechanic arts he 
visited the factories, taking the opportunity to 
turn the attention of men to their spiritual 
welfare. Few men possess the power which 
he exhibited of gaining the confidence of 
others. Many who formed their acquaintance 
with him in the workshops were drawn to hear 



MEMOEIAL. 103 

him preach. Some, who had not attended 
divine service for years, were induced to attend 
it regularly with their families. He not only 
became acquainted with the people himself, 
but he used every means to bring them to- 
gether socially that they might become ac- 
quainted with each other, removing the dis- 
tance which so often exists among the members 
of our churches, and establishing those strong 
bonds of union and friendship which give 
power and vigor to a people. 

" While he attended with care to these duties, 
he did not neglect his preparation for the pul- 
pit. He aimed not at the gilding or trappings 
of oratory. It was not the ear, but the un- 
derstanding and heart of his hearers that he 
wished to reach, and the seed sown by his hand 
was blessed to the conversion of men. A 
large number of members was added to the 
church, by profession of faith and by certificate, 



104 MEMORIAL. 

during his ministry of little more than three 
years. 

" Lie attached great importance to the Sab- 
bath-school, believing it to be the main source 

of strength to the church — that here 
foundation was laid — that here the church 
to look for its growth, and that this institution 
should receive the earnest support of the pas- 
tor. No teacher was more regular in attend- 
ance upon the Sabbath -school than he, except 
when he was supplying some pulpit beside his 
own, or was called away by pastoral du1 
For teachers and for scholars he had some kind 
word of encouragement, and the attachments 
here formed for him by the children of his 
charge, caused tears and sorrow for his loss. 
The school increased rapidly, and in two years 
it had more than quadrupled in numbers. In 
the midst of his labors, when the hearts of his 
people were fixed upon him, when evidences 



MEMORIAL. 105 

of his usefulness were seen on every hand, he 
has been stricken down by disease, and death 
has severed the bond of union between him 
and his people. Long will his name and 
memory be cherished." 

Few particulars need to be added. His 
labors were unwearied, and, what at the time 
was wholly unsuspected, beyond his strength. 
He was present with an active and inspiring 
interest in every movement connected with the 
prosperity of his church and society. He 
preached almost uniformly twice on the Sab- 
bath, rarely exchanged, and had little aid in 
the pulpit. He liked to preach. If it was a 
toil, it was yet a pleasure to him to unfold the 
truths of the Bible, and recommend them to 
the reason, the conscience, and the hearts of 
intelligent hearers. Here, as well as at Hones- 
dale, without descending from the high ground 

of a spiritual religion, he readily seized upon 
5* 



106 MEMORIAL. 

local or parsing topics and turned them to a 
religious use. Be not only preached in the 
morning and evening of the Sabbath, 
the Sabbath-eohool regularly on the Sabbath 

afternoon, and the weekly lecture and pn 
meetings, but even i' choir, 

and took ft constant and effective interest, in 

which zeal was happily mingled with candor 
and good-humor, in the temporal as well as 
spiritual affairs of the society. 

A great and permanent change ensued, 
and a steady growth of both the church and 
congregation. In the first year of his minis- 
try, or 1856, thirty-five members were ■ 
to the church, and before the close of the third 
year, a large number of new members had joined 
it, composed of nearly equal numbers received 
on letter or certificate from other churches, and 
on the profession of their faith. In the second 
year of his ministry the congregation, the 



MEMORIAL. 107 

growth of which, was in a still greater proportion 
than that of the church, had become sufficiently 
strong and united to build a conference house or 
lecture-room, and to repair and fresco their fine 
large church, as already stated, at an expense of 
several thousand dollars. It was pleasant and 
almost amusing to see the daily, earnest interest 
with which he watched the progress of the im- 
provement of the church, and urged it towards 
completion. 

At the close of that year he notes in his 
sermon-book, that he stops a course of sermons, 
which he had been preaching, " to introduce 
more practical and experimental preaching in 
consequence of a general seriousness," and then, 
after mentioning these marks of outward pros- 
perity", that " the church has been painted, a 
lecture-room built, and the congregation greatly 
increased during the last year," he glances up- 



10 S MEMOBrAL. 

ward and drops the ejaculation, " Come, Holy 

Spirit, Heavenly Dove." 

We cannot doubt that this petition arose 

from the depths of a softened and longing 

heart, more solemn from recent afflictions, and 

that a record of it was made in heaven as well 

as on earth. 

In the following year there was a great and 

general attention to the subject of religion in 
his congregation, as there was in a very large 
number of the churches throughout the coun- 
try. This was to Dr. Eowland an arduous, 
and to him and many of those under his charge, 
a memorable year. On the fourteenth of March, 
1858, twenty-nine were admitted to the church, 
twenty-two of them on the profession of their 
faith; on the second of May, thirteen were 
admitted, twelve of them on the profession of 
their faith, and during that year in all fifty-five, 
eleven of them on certificate from other church- 



MEMORIAL. 109 

es, and forty-four on the profession of their faith. 
These details may not be necessary, but they 
verify and enforce the general statements which 
have been made. If to win souls be the prime 
object of the Christian ministry, it can hardly 
be inappropriate in a memorial of a minister of 
the gospel that the issue of his labors in that 
respect should be recorded. 

Near the close of the previous year an event 
occurred which made a deep impression on the 
mind of Dr. Eowlancl. This was the death of 
his brother-in-law, the Eev. Abraham Polhe- 
mus, D. D., pastor of the North Dutch Church 
in Newark, " who," to use Dr. Eowland's terse 
language, "died 28th October, 1857, at Dr. 
Forsyth's, Newburgh, in triumph." Taken 
away as he was in the fulness of vigorous 
manhood, when long years of earthly happi- 
ness and usefulness appeared to be in store for 
him, when he had but lately entered upon hij3 



110 MEMORIAL. 

duties as pastor of a neighboring church, and 
had come to reside at Newark, his death spoke 
powerfully to Dr. Bowland's heart. He seemed 
to have a new sense of the vanity of life and 
of the trivial nature of its ordinary pursuits, 
and to him who pens these lines then pre- 
dicted that his own wife would be a widow, as 
if he already felt the solemn shadow of that 
coming and near event. 

But his energy and capacity for labor, and 
cheerful alacrity in the performance of duty 
still continued. And he was cheered and 
gladdened by seeing the abundant fruits of his 
labors, and by the proofs of attachment re- 
ceived from the members of his congregation 
by himself and his family. A pleasing evi- 
dence of this attachment was given in the 
year previous to his death. Sunday, the loth 
of August in that year, was the anniversary of 
his marriage. On the following evening his 



MEMORIAL. Ill 

congregation met in a surprise-party at his 
house, and celebrated with himself and his 
wife their silver wedding. An address was 
made to Dr. Rowland, to which he replied, a 
purse of five hundred and fifty dollars was 
presented to him, and an appropriate original 
poem, written for the occasion, was read. An 
entertainment was also provided, and a scene of 
enjoyment displayed, not soon to be forgotten. 
The assurance given by this manifestation of 
affectionate regard, was particularly grateful to 
Dr. Rowland's heart and memory. The occa- 
sion was indeed one in itself to inspire unusu- 
al pleasure and gratitude. Since he had been 
married, years had rolled away, children had 
gathered around his table and hearth to add 
to his happiness, and of the silver-chain 
which was how clasped, not a link had ever 
been broken. The dear family circle, of which 
himself and his wife were the beloved centre, 



112 MEMORIAL. 

had never been invaded by death, hardly by 
sickness, and he had had large experience, as 
those familiar with his well regulated home well 
know, of the sacred joys of domestic life. 

We think that we should not give a just 
idea of the services of Dr. Rowland, if we 
represented them as confined to his own par- 
ticular congregation or to the community in 
which he lived, or even in addition to the val- 
uable contributions made by him to our relig- 
ious literature. His church was an integral 
part of a wide-spread and powerful denomina- 
tion, in whose councils and affairs and among 
whose ministers and members we believe he 
had no insignificant weight and influence. He 
was often a member of the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian church, and in May, 1858, 
at the meeting of that body at Chicago, he was 
the chairman of its judiciary committee, — a 
fact which shows his high standing among 



MEMORIAL. 113 

his brethren, and the confidence which was 
placed in his ability and judgment. He had 
indeed made the constitution, discipline, sys- 
tem of doctrine and general organization of 
the Presbyterian church a subject of particular 
attention and study, and he thought that he 
understood them. If we may venture such an 
opinion, his success in his pastoral relations 
was promoted in no slight degree by his accu- 
rate knowledge of the proper working of this 
system, and its limitations of power and of 
duty. In the Presbytery to which he be- 
longed, he was distinguished, if we are not 
misinformed, by the ardor of his zeal for the 
extension of the privileges of the gospel and 
the kingdom of Christ among men. That 
seemed to be the burden of his heart. lie was 
not only zealous, he was also practical and effi- 
cient in both devising and executing; and in 



114 MEMORIAL. 

carrying out the plans adopted, he took a de- 
voted and active part. 

During his short residence in the city of 
Newark, he gained greatly upon the feelings 
and affections of the community. As his 
character became known and understood, it 
was appreciated. His manliness and energy, 
his plainness and directness, might be expected 
to suit a, people so prominent for the successful 
prosecution of the ingenious arts of mechan- 
ical industry. He soon became widely known. 
His social, genial spirit, his kindness of heart 
even to the humblest and youngest — he had a 
pleasant word for everybody, — his unhesitating 
frankness and contagious good-humor, his in- 
terest in all the affairs of life, all the forms of 
industry and movements of society, his forget- 
fulness of adventitious advantages and readi- 
ness to meet all cordially on the common 
ground of thought and feeling, his evident 



MEMORIAL. 115 

simplicity and sincerity, won for him many 
friends, and with, his uprightness, activity, con- 
stancy, and earnestness of purpose, his solid in- 
tellectual qualities and Christian worth made a 
deep, wide and increasing impression. We 
shall not attempt to notice all the directions in 
which the rays of his influence were benignly 
felt. Those upon whom they immediately fell, 
and who rejoiced in their light, can best speak, 
not only of their warmth and brightness, but 
of the many ways in which they reached the 
heart. 

He preached sermons on special occasions, 
and series of sermons on special topics to large 
audiences. He wrote much for the Newark 
newspapers. " He was fond of writing, and 
few men handled the pen with more ease, 
whether in the composition of a sermon or in 
the lighter articles in which he described some 
humorous story, or depicted — never in an un* 



116 MEMORIAL. 

kindly spirit — some of the social foibles of the 
da}^. His contributions to the Newark papers 
of various kinds and on various topics, if col- 
lected, would make a considerable volume." 
Some of these contributions were on the moral 
questions of the day, on which he held decided 
though not extreme opinions, expressed with- 
out hesitation or reserve. The pressure of his 
engagements left him little leisure for the com- 
position or publication of new books. But 
amid his numerous occupations, he made con- 
siderable progress in the preparation of a new 
edition of one of his works, with special refer- 
ence to the recent forms assumed by infidel- 
ity in this country. If we are not mis- 
taken he also projected a new work, shadowed 
forth and to a considerable extent embodied in 
a series of sermons delivered by him, on a sub- 
ject deeply interesting to the Christian heart. 
Death, however, that solemn event which so 



MEMORIAL. 117 

frequently defeats the purposes and hopes of 
man, however wisely formed or apparently 
sure of fulfilment, prevented the realization of 
his. 

His constant and anxious labors, especially 
to build up his church and. to fill and enlarge 
his sphere of usefulness, began to make a visi- 
ble impression on his excellent health and con- 
stitution, whose powers of resistance may well 
be supposed to have been already weakened 
by a laborious and earnest life. In looking 
back, his most intimate friends, at least the one 
who had the best opportunity to know, think 
that about two years before bis death his 
health showed signs of faltering, though they 
were not fully appreciated or much regarded 
at the time. But in January, 1859, he had a 
sudden attack of illness which for a week or 
two prostrated him on his bed; and although 
he was soon around and continued to preach 



1 18 MEMORIAL. 

until the following May, he was never well 
again. Months later and in the summer, Dr. 
Kowland traced the sickness, which was after- 
wards fatal to him, to this period or the one 
immediately previous, but its hidden internal 
causes were undoubtedly of a more remote and 
then unsuspected date, and, after unseen prog- 
ress, were only receiving in this sickness their 
full development. As the winter closed and 
the spring drew on in its promise and beauty, 
which so strongly contrast with sickness and 
decay, his friends became alarmed lest his vig- 
orous constitution, which had so long enabled 
a willing heart to do manful service for his 
master, should give way. They hoped, and 
there seemed to be reason, that his complaints 
were merely dyspeptic, but the severe pain in 
the region of his heart, his difficulty at times 
of breathing, and his want of sleep, pointed to 
something more serious. His friends urged 



MEMORIAL. 119 

upon him that he must take some relaxation. 
In the early part of May he accordingly went 
to Newburgh, and spent about ten days or a 
fortnight there, making then, or in a subse- 
quent visit to the same place in June, "■ little 
trips to West Point, Greenwood Lake, and 
other places in the vicinity." He returned to 
Newark so much better as he thought, that he 
ventured to preach, and on the 29th day of 
May, delivered his last sermon in his own pul- 
pit. He preached in the morning of that day 
from John xii. 46, and in the afternoon from 
Mathew vii. 26, 27. But he found that he 
had mistaken the degree of the improvement 
in his health, and estimated much too highly 
his strength. His congregation " with consid- 
erate kindness" gave him a respite of four 
months from his labors. He spent some time 
with his old and valued friends at Honesdale, 
and with one of them went to Saratoga, in the 



120 MEMORIAL. 

hope, which proved delusive, of some benefit 
from its mineral waters. There he was very 
ill, and he was hardly able to reach his home. 
Under an erroneous impression of the nature 
of his disease, he had sought physical exercise 
and excitement, when he needed rest. His 
body had wasted away, and his nervous sys- 
tem had become very much affected by the 
fearful inroads of his disease. He sought his 
bed at once. But he rallied soon again, and 
in pursuance of an arrangement previously 
made with some of his Honesdale friends, 
which he could not be persuaded from fulfil- 
ling, he started about the first of August, with 
his wife and one of his daughters, on a trip to 
Gloucester, Massachusetts, for the benefit of 
sea-air and sea-bathing, and the enjoyment of 
his favorite sport of fishing. On board of the 
steamer on his way to Fall River, he became 
seriously ill, and reached Boston only "to lie 



MEMOKIAL. 121 

down on what proved his bed of death." An 
abler pen than ours, of one who was sum- 
moned to his side, shall describe the closing 
scene of his last sickness. 

"Dr. Eowland reached Boston with dif- 
ficulty, and was obliged immediately to be- 
take himself to his bed, and to send for Dr. 
Jeffries. In his skill as a physician lie felt 
and testified the utmost confidence, while his 
kind Christian sympathy and conversation 
were refreshing to his soul. Though his pros- 
tration was extreme, and his nervous derange- 
ment so great as to prevent his sleeping during 
the night or day, Dr. Jeffries did not for some 
time consider that there was serious danger of 
a fatal termination. ' I am more afraid of his 
mind than of his life,' said he on one occasion, 
to a relative who had gone to Boston to visit 
Dr. Eowland. The medicines that he seemed 
especially to need, were rest and sleep. Hence 



122 MKMOKIAL. 

for several weeks none were admitted to his 
room except those who were in attendance 
upon him, as the unexpected presence even of 
an old friend agitated him exceedingly. As 
the extreme nervous excitability was, on one 
or two occasions in the course of his illness, 
somewhat allayed, hopes were entertained of 
his ultimate recovery. But his constantly 
wasting strength plainly enough showed that 
his days were drawing to a close. 

" His friend and classmate at Yale and Ando- 
ver, the Rev. Dr. Blagden, of the Old South, 
visited him daily and prayed at his bedside, 
but the nature of his disease, as well as the in- 
junctions of his physician, did not allow of 
lengthened conversation with him. From an 
early period, Dr. Eowland himself seems to 
have been strongly impressed with the convic- 
tion that this sickness would be unto death, 
but the prospect did not dismay him; he 



MEMORIAL. 123 

trusted in the Lord, and according to the 
promise he was ' kept in perfect peace.' There 
were, indeed, moments when the thought that 
his recovery was possible occurred to him, and 
he then said that he should like to get well 
that he might labor for Christ, as he felt that 
he might be more useful than he had ever 
been — that he had been brought to make a 
more complete surrender of himself to the 
Lord than ever before ; still if the Saviour had 
nothing more for him to do, he was ready to 
go. His wife and his sister were constantly 
with him by night and by day, and the latter 
writes, 'Through his entire sickness I never 
heard him express a doubt of his own accept- 
ance, but all his expressions were those of 
faith, trust, and entire submission to the will 
of God.' He very frequently spoke of his 
trust in Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour, and 
said, ' I wish to speak for Christ, but I have 



124 MEMORIAL. 

not strength to do so.' Besides his feebleness, 
the soreness of his mouth and throat rendered 
speaking difficult and painful. 

" A letter which had just arrived from West- 
ern New York, containing an account of the 
great good resulting from the circulation of 
the Path of Life in the place where the writer 
was visiting, afforded him great satisfaction. 
He remained silent for a long time after the 
letter had been read to him ; but at length said 
that he had had 'wonderful views of the exten- 
sion of the Kedeemer's kingdom.' The subject 
was evidently one especially attractive to him, 
and which very much occupied his thoughts. He 
at one time asked his sister if there were any 
tidings of revivals, and when she mentioned to 
him the great work of God in Ireland and 
other parts of the British isles, he exclaimed, 
' Glorious ! glorious !' This was the burden of 
his prayers — ' Send forth thy light and truth.' 



MEMORIAL. 125 

" As the conviction became more and more 
settled in his own mind that his ministry on 
earth was near its termination, his thoughts 
naturally turned to his congregation at New- 
ark, and his tender interest in their welfare 
came out in various ways. On one occasion 
his sister, who was watching at his bed, no- 
ticed that his countenance indicated that he 
was in great distress, and she proposed to 
change his position, hoping thus to relieve 
him ; but he raised his head and made a dep- 
recatory gesture, saying, 'Hush, hush.' As 
the distress appeared to continue, and the big 
drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead, 
she again spoke to him, but the same signifi- 
cant gesture and words were repeated. After 
a while he looked up calmly and said, ' I was 
bidding my people farewell.' During the last 
week of his life a number of his parishioners 
came on to see him. They could remain near 



126 MEMORIAL. 

his bed only for a few moments, and he was 
able to address only a few words to them ; but 
these words told how warmly he loved them 
and yearned for their salvation. To one of 
them, a valued friend who stayed in Boston 
until his decease, he said, 'The only thing 
worth living for — ' his speech here failed him, 
but he made his meaning plain enough by 
raising his hand, pointing towards heaven. 

"One night he desired that his sister, who had 
retired to get some rest, might be called. Mrs. 
Eowland having awakened her, he said to 
them, ' I am going to dedicate myself renew- 
edly to God, and I wish you to join with me 
in making a perfect and entire surrender of 
ourselves to God for time and eternity.' He 
then offered a very affecting prayer, in which 
this purpose of his heart found most appro- 
priate utterance. After he concluded he turn- 
ed to his wife and sister, and said to them, 



MEMOKIAL. 127 

' Kemember now that you are henceforth the 
Lord's wholly.' 

''During the Friday before his death, lie was 
for a good while apparently engaged in medi- 
tation, in the course of which his face was so 
irradiated with the light of joy, that the changed 
expression, usually one of pain, was so striking 
as to attract the attention of those around his 
bed. His wife said to him, 'You see the 
heavenly city V 'Yes,' he replied. Mrs. F., 
another relative, added, ' And you will soon 
be there.' He made a gesture of assent. 
'And you will meet,' she rejoined, 'many 
dear friends who have gone before you there." 
' More, more,' he exclaimed. ' You will see 
the Saviour,' she added. ' Yes,' he said ; 
' the Lamb, the Lamb.' Dr. Blagden came 
in soon after, and asked him if he could put 
all his trust in Christ. ' Yes, yes,' was his 
instant response. 



128 MEMORIAL. 

" During the greater part of the last week of 
his life, his physician thought from day to day 
that each one would be his last. But during 
this whole period, though his sufferings at- 
times were very great, he was perfectly con- 
scious, recognizing and in brief sentences con- 
versing with the friends around him. The 
last night he spent on earth was one of pro- 
tracted and often exquisite pain ; but it ceased 
an hour or two before his departure, and at 
length he fell asleep so gently that it was im- 
possible to fix the moment when his soul was 
released for ever from the sins and sorrows of 
earth, and entered the pavilion of peace in the 
bosom of his God and Saviour." 

Thus died this servant of God— away from 
his earthly home, but near enough to that in 
heaven, nor yet among strangers, for some of 
those dear to him were at his side, relieving his 
sufferings by their kindness and sympathy 



MEMORIAL. 129 

and sharing his faith — in a city, where he 
could avail himself of the advice and skill of 
eminent physicians, an advantage to which he 
was not insensible — in the State of his mater- 
nal ancestors, and near the spot where some of 
them, exiles for religion, driven to a strange 
land, had landed about two centuries and a 
quarter before. 

Dr. Eowland died at Boston, on Sunday, 
the fourth day of September, 1859, in the fifty- 
fifth year of his age. No cloubt remained after 
his death as to the character of the disease 
under which he had been laboring. It was 
found to be of a complicated nature, the prin 
cipal feature of which was an enlargement of 
the heart. Other important organs were im- 
plicated or disastrously affected, so that had he 
survived this attack, and escaped danger from 
that quarter, his life would probably not have 
been for a great while prolonged. 



180 MEMORIAL. 

The mournful train of his friends left Boston, 
on the next Monday morning, with all that 
was mortal of Dr. Rowland, and arrived at 
Newark on the following evening. 

The daily newspapers of that city had from 
day to day made known his condition, as for 
some time past " 'twixt night and morn" his 
life had hovered "on the horizon's verge," and 
a deep and general interest in him, and the 
event of his sickness had been felt. The in- 
telligence of his death, though not unexpected, 
made a deep impression upon the whole com- 
munity, and called forth expressions of sorrow 
and sympathy from all classes of the citizens. 
The strong hold which Dr. Rowland had gained 
on their affections, within the short period of his 
ministry among them, was now seen and recog- 
nized. The members of his congregation were 
prompt, assiduous, and generous in manifesting 
their attachment to him, and in rendering their 



MEMORIAL. 131 

services to Lis family, and in the last sad rites. 
The sorrowful company of friends on their ar- 
rival from Boston at New York, were received 
by members of the congregation, and conduct- 
ed to Newark, and by others still at Dr. Eow- 
land's house. How changed the scene from 
that which had gathered them there a year 
ago! 

The shadow of death so long delayed had at 
last fallen upon this pleasant home, and the 
honored head of the then unbroken family had 
been laid low. Into the sacred sorrows of that 
hour we will not intrude ; but if the angel of 
death was there, we believe that the angels of 
consolation and faith were also there. 

The last mournful ceremonies were celebrated 
on the Thursday following. After a prayer 
had been offered at the house by the Eev. Dr. 
Wilson, the remains of the deceased were 
accompanied by his relatives and immediate 



132 MEMORIAL. 

friends to Park Church, where the funeral ser- 
vices were conducted by clergymen of the city. 
The large church, draped in black, was crowd- 
ed to excess. The funeral sermon, an impres- 
sive discourse, was preached by the Eev. Dr. E. 
E. Fairchild, from Matt xxv. 21 : " Well done, 
good and faithful servant. Thou hast been 
faithful over a few things, I will make thee 
ruler over many things. Enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord." After explaining the para- 
ble, from which the text was taken, he referred 
to the character of the deceased, and spoke, 
strongly of his fidelity, piety, virtues, and tal- 
ents, of his qualities as a man and a Christian, 
of his abilities as a preacher and excellence as 
a pastor, and gave a brief notice of the princi- 
pal events of his life. At the close of the 
solemn services the procession proceeded to 
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where a touching 
address was made by the -Rev. Dr. Stearns ; and 



MEMORIAL. 133 

there, on the bank of the Passaic, by the side 
of the Eev. Dr. Polhemus, were laid the re- 
mains of our departed friend, to rest until he 
shall " rise again in the resurrection at the last 
day," when " this corruptible must put on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- 
mortality." 

The death of Dr. Eowland was profoundly 
felt, — the more profoundly in the city 6*f his 
residence, that already, within the two years 
immediately previous, two pastors of distinction 
connected with churches in that city, the Eev. 
Dr. Scott and the Eev. Dr. Polhemus, had 
been removed from their posts by similar acts 
of Divine Providence. The society of which 
Dr. Eowland was pastor, beyond its participa- 
tion in the general grief, had its own peculiar 
cause of sorrow. It had lost a beloved teacher 
and guide just as it had learned to appreciate 
his worth, and as it had entered on a new career 



134 MEMORIAL. 

of strength and prosperity. It was a source 
of great satisfaction to Dr. Rowland in his 
sickness, that, as he believed, the church for 
which he had labored so earnestly was now 
firmly established. Resolutions were adopted 
to express the profound sense of their loss by 
his death, their warm attachment to him, and 
high appreciation of his character and labors ; 
his salary was generously continued to the end 
of the year for the benefit of his family, and 
many other substantial and generous proofs were 
given of their regard for him and his family. 

On the Sabbath succeeding the burial of Dr. 
Rowland, the Rev. Dr. John Forsyth, of New- 
burgh, preached a sermon in the vacant pulpit 
of Park Church, with reference to the event 
which had deprived it of its pastor, on the appro- 
priate theme of abounding in the work of the 
Lord, from the text 1 Cor. xv. 58 : " Therefore, 
my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, 



MEMORIAL. 135 

always abounding in the work of the Lord." 
He showed that it was the duty of all Chris- 
tians (explaining in what manner) to abound 
in the work of the Lord, and to be immovably 
steadfast in the doctrine of the resurrection of 
the dead, inculcated in the glowing passage of 
which his text was part, and he said that the text 
intimated that there was a close connection be- 
tween such steadfastness and abounding in the 
Lord's work ; and then, after having spoken of 
the fundamental verities of Christ dead and 
Christ risen, he made a solemn and affecting ad- 
dress to his audience on the event of Dr. Eow- 
land's death. 

On the following Sabbath, the Eev. Dr. 
McKee, of the Reformed Dutch Church, who 
had supplied Dr. Eowland's pulpit in his ab- 
sence, preached a sermon at Park Church, with 
reference to the same event, and this sermon 
closed what may be considered as the series of 
funereal services. 



136 MKMORIAL. 

Thus died and was buried, the Rev. Henry 
Augustus Rowland, honored and beloved: We 
have entirely failed in the imperfect outline 
which we have sketched, if it be necessary 
to speak particularly here of his character. 
His life speaks. We have tried to give a sim- 
ple picture of it. 

He was a sincere Christian, unwavering in 
his faith. From the time when he entered the 
Christian ministry, his life was full of proofs 
of devotion to his divine Master. His piety 
was not formal or ostentatious, but it lay at the 
foundation of his whole course of action. It 
was more a principle than a sentiment, though 
it partook of both. It was the animating mo- 
tive, the impelling spring of all his exertions. 
As a preacher, he was able, forcible, and in- 
structive, clearly explaining and boldly de- 
fending" the doctrines of the gospel, and en- 
forcing them with solid argument and earnest 



MEMORIAL. 137 

exhortation. His sermons were diligently 
prepared, and usually sedulously corrected, 
though less with reference to the niceties of 
verbal criticism than to force of argument and 
effectiveness of expression. As a pastor, he 
was active and faithful, sympathizing with all 
classes of his people, familiar with them all, vis- 
iting them freely in their homes and places of 
business, meeting them without formality and re- 
straint, and winning their confidence and their 
hearts, mindful of the poor and contributing 
generously to their relief, assiduously caring for 
the instruction of the young, and wisely and pa- 
tiently leading the inquiring into the path of 
life. He was one of those practical, earnest, en- 
ergetic men, who build up the institutions of our 
Christian civilization, and to whom society owes 
a debt of gratitude which, after they are gone, 
she is not always prompt to repay. As an author, 
he has made valuable contributions to our sacred 



138 MEMORIAL. 

literature, which will prolong his usefulness 
and perpetuate the fragrance of his name. 

He was a noble-hearted man, of great moral 
courage, of genial temper, social inclination* 
and habits, frank, open, transparent as the 
day, with cheerful manners and an illumina- 
ting smile. lie was true and constant in his 
friendships, upright, forgiving, and sincere, with 
a large, generous heart. In his family he was 
the loving and beloved husband and father, 
the centre of its affections and hopes. 

He did not pretend to be without faults. It 
was a part of his religion that we do daily err 
in thought, word and deed, and he neither ac- 
knowledged perfection in others, nor laid claim 
to it himself. He knew his own integrity and 
the honesty with which he uttered his convic- 
tions. His faults, such as the)' were, lay on 
the surface, and grew out of the simplicity, 
frankness, earnestness, and energy of his char- 



MEMORIAL. 139 

acter. They did not affect its solid basis or 
substantial worth. 

Those, for whom it is appropriate, have re- 
hearsed the lessons of his life and his death. 
We would silently meditate upon them. 



"We have been permitted to copy from Dr. 
Forsyth's sermon, to which we have already 
referred,* his closing address, in these words: 

The subject to which your attention has 
been directed, seems to me to be a not inap- 
propriate theme of meditation, in the circum- 
stances in which we meet in this sanctuary, 
and in which, unexpectedly, I have been asked 
to occupy this vacant pulpit. To myself, per- 
sonally, as well as you, these circumstances 
are very solemn and affecting. Only two 
* See page 134. 



140 MEMORIAL. 

years ago, among the pastors of this city, there 
were two, both of whom were my brothers in 
a double sense; both of whom were in the 
meridian of their days ; and concerning both 
of whom it might then have been said that, 
among all their colleagues, none had fairer pros- 
pects of being spared for active and effec- 
tive labor for Christ, during many years. To- 
day they are both numbered with the dead 
who have died in the Lord, and in yonder 
beautiful cemetery on the banks of the Passaic, 
they repose side by side. They have gone to 
swell the myriads who sleep in Jesus. They have 
finished their course, and having kept the faith 
they have joined the great multitude of disem- 
bodied saints who are present with the Lord. 
Nor are they the only ones who have been 
called within the short period, from your good- 
ly brotherhood of pastors, to rest from their 
labors. Another is there whose memory is 



MEMORIAL. 141 

precious to many in this city. "Within the 
brief space of two years, three sister churches 
standing almost side by side have been com- 
pelled to array themselves in the dark drapery 
of mourning. Polhemus, Scott, Kowland, — 
shall be seen no more forever in the pulpits, 
nor in the streets where they were so well 
known. 

Surely these repeated strokes, coming as they 
do from the hand of (rod, are not without a 
meaning! Yes. "The Lord's voice crieth 
unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see 
thy name ; hear ye the rod and him who 
hath appointed it." These successive bereave- 
ments are indeed the impressive utterance of 
him who walketh in the the midst of the gold- 
en candlesticks, addressed to ministers and to 
people, — saying to one and all, "Be watchful 
and strengthen the things that remain ; have 
patience, and for my name's sake labor and 



142 MEMORIAL. 

faint riot; be steadfast, immovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord, for the 
night cometh in which no man can work." 

I do not appear before you this morning, my 
dear friends, for the purpose of painting the 
character, or of describing the career of the 
pastor whom God hath taken from you. That 
service has been already well performed by 
one who had known him long — a beloved 
friend and brother in the ministry every way 
competent to the task. But indeed, those 
among whom Dr. Rowland has gone out and 
in, discharging the various functions of his 
office, hardly require any other portraiture of 
him than that which is written on their own 
memories. For if ever there was a man who 
walked among his fellows with a window in 
his breast, it was he. Long and intimate as- 
sociation with some men is necessary in order 
to understand them thoroughly, and rightly to 



MEMORIAL. 143 

appreciate them. Not so with your departed 
Pastor. His distinctive traits were so legible 
that all who were brought into contact with 
him could read them. But, as I have said, I 
do not come here to portray or to eulogize the 
dead. Let me rather enforce the exhortation 
of the text by arguments suggested by his life 
and death. And if he could have been conveyed 
from the chamber where he breathed his last, 
into this pulpit, to utter in your hearing the 
farewell to his people which he tried to ex- 
cogitate, even amid the pain and languor of 
disease, oh ! with what intense earnestness 
and emphasis would he have cried out to you, 
"Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding 
in the work of the Lord." 

If, dear friends, you could have been with 
your dying pastor during the last week of his 
life ; if you could have been admitted to see 
him as he lay upon the bed from which he was 



144 MEMORIAL. 

never to rise ; if you could have seen him wan 
and wasted by disease, sleepless, tossing his 
head upon his pillow, while often his whole 
frame was racked by sharpest pain, and if you 
had been forced as you would have been if 
there, just to sit and look upon his sufferings, 
conscious that neither friend nor physician 
could alleviate them, you might have been 
tempted to say, How pitiable his case, how in- 
tensely wretched his condition. And yet, if 
by the turning of a straw he could have been 
raised from that bed of languishing to instant 
and perfect health — unless for your sake, and 
for those dear to him by the ties of nature — I 
am persuaded that he would not have turned 
it. He knew whom he had believed, and was 
confident that for him " to die is gain." 

Do you ask me what sustained him ? It 
was the sight of the Lamb of God, once slain 
for sinners ; it was the felt presence of Christ, 



MEMOKIAL. 145 

who died and rose again. This was the truth 
which he found more precious than gold or 
silver, — the truth which filled him with a di- 
vine peace even then when heart and flesh were 
failing, and when he himself was conscious that 
the earthly house of his tabernacle was dissolv- 
ing. Yes, it was the simple truth " how that 
Christ died and rose again." 

And during all those wearisome weeks which 
were appointed him ; and especially as he saw 
their end approaching, what, think you, were 
the recollections he most fondly cherished, the 
memories which, like gentle breezes laden with 
balmy fragrance, refreshed his wearied heart ? 
It was the remembrance of the service he had 
been enabled to render to the cause of his 
divine Master — of the good accomplished 
through his instrumentality — of the time spent, 
the efforts made, to advance the Lord's work. 

These were the recollections that came over him 

7 



146 MEMORIAL. 

with an influence like that of the descending 
dew upon the mountains of Zion. Ilis only 
regret was that he hud not " abounded" more 
in the blessed work. As he said to a friend 
who had come from a distance to see him, — 
" The only thing worth living for"— he could 
not complete the sentence in words, but he 
made his meaning plain enough, as he feebly 
lifted his hand and turned his dying eyes 
towards heaven. From that bed of death, 
from his new-made grave, he speaks to you, 
saying, " My beloved brethren, be ye steadfast 
— always abounding in the icork of the Lord." 

Oh ! my dear friends, let me entreat you to 
" remember him who hath spoken to you the 
words of God," not merely by cherishing the 
memory of him as a pastor, and a friend, but 
by " considering the end of his conversation," 
Jesus Christ, and by following his faith. He 
has spoken to you from the pulpit ; he has spo- 



MEMORIAL. 147 

ken to you in your own homes ; lie has pressed 
upon you the claims of the Eedeemer, the per* 
ils of your souls, the momentous realities of 
eternity. Some of you have been, it may be, 
not unmoved by these faithful dealings of a 
pastor whose face you shall never see again, 
whose voice you shall no more hear ; and yet 
you have not taken the decisive step— you have 
not yet brought yourselves to form the grand 
resolve, You are still lingering, still- hesitating 
between the world and Christ, you are sensible 
that your condition is neither right nor safe ; 
you are, in a word, strangers to peace and joy, 
because strangers to Jesus who died and rose 
again. Listen, I beseech you, to the voice of 
this bereavement, to the solemn voice that 
comes to you from this now vacant pulpit. 
And may your Pastor's death be the means of 
bringing you to the instant and blessed deci- 
sion to yield yourselves to that Saviour whom 
it was his greatest joy to preach, 



SERMON 



REV. E. R. FAIRCHILD, D.D. 



Preached at the Funeral of Eev. Henry A. Rowland, D. D. Thurs- 
day Morning, September 8th, 1S59, and repeated by request, Sun- 
day Evening, the 23d of October following, to his former 
charge in Honesdale, Pa. 



SERMON. 



Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou hast been 
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many 
fellings : enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. 

— Matt. xxv. 21. 

These words constitute a part of our Sav- 
iour's memorable "parable of the talents." 
The main design of that parable was, to unfold, 
in a true and impressive form, the relations of 
men to Grod — their accountability to him for 
things entrusted to them, for use or enjoy- 
ment — and the future condition which awaited 
them for their respective courses, in practical 
life. 

It was doubtless the intention of the Saviour, 
that these truths, thus set forth, should also 
furnish to all who should hear his gospel 



152 SERMON. 

worthy and weighty motives to diligence and 
fidelity, in the discharge of the duties which 
were divinely imposed upon them. That in- 
tention the parable most happily carries out. 
The imagery employed, though simple, and 
drawn from familiar scenes, appeals strongly 
to principles of human nature which, to a very 
large extent, control the lives of men. A 
most striking part of that imagery is comprised 
in the words of the text, which no one can 
deliberately contemplate without admiring its 
moral beauty and feeling its power. 

In the former part of the parable the Master 
is represented as having distributed his goods 
among his servants, and also as having gone 
into a far country, and tarried there a long 
time. He is here represented as having re- 
turned and engaged in taking an account of 
his servants' stewardship. He has just finish- 
ed his reckoning with one to whom he had 



SERMON. • 153 

entrusted the largest amount of his goods. 
That servant was found to have been most con- 
scientiously and scrupulously faithful to the 
interests committed to his care ; and as evidence 
of his fidelity, industry, and attention to his 
various duties, he presented the goods he had 
originally received, and the increase which his 
efforts had secured : 

" And so he that had received five talents, 
came and brought other five talents, saying, 
Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents : 
behold I have gained besides them five talents 
more." 

The gratification of the Master at the dis- 
covery of this faithfulness and its results is 
intense, if not unbounded, and in the text his 
feelings and gracious purposes are earnestly 
and emphatically expressed. He therein pro- 
claims his unqualified approbation of both the 

character and work of the servant; and oifi- 
7* 



154 SERMON. 

cially announces to him the honorable treat- 
ment he shall consequently receive — the high 
and glorious rewards to which he shall succeed 
and enjoy forever. 

" Well done ! thou good and faithful ser- 
vant ! . . . . I will make thee ruler over 
many things: enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 

It is to be observed that the recipient is 
a servant, and has lived in association with 
servants and the things connected with a 
humble condition of life ; but now there is to 
be a happy and a great change — a transition 
from servitude, obscurity, poverty, to that of 
freedom, rank, wealth, influence, princely 
honors, the rich and varied enjoyments of a 
glorious and imperishable kingdom. That 
life which has hitherto been led, remote from 
the celestial dwelling-place of the Master, is no 
longer to be drawn out in a far-distant and 



SERMON". 155 

trying abode of care and toil, of sin and sor- 
row; but exchanged for a life to be led in the 
heavenly world, in the immediate presence of 
the Saviour — and whose excellence and happi- 
ness by way of distinction and of eminence is 
called " the joy of his Lord." 

If the parable refers exclusively, as some 
suppose, to ministers of the gospel, who in 
the Scriptures are called servants of Christ, 
(though I see no necessity for restricting it to 
them,) then the scenes of the text, which rep- 
resent the great events connected with the 
death of an eminent one of them, are pecu- 
liarly appropriate for contemplation on this sad 
and mournful occasion. But I cannot thus 
limit it. It has a wider range, and while it 
refers, it may be, in some special sense, to 
those who have been invested with the office 
of the ministry, it also has reference to all 
the servants of the Saviour, everywhere and in 



156 SERMON. 

every station in society. It brings oat to view 
the great and joyous truth that every one 
who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity — 
who takes the will of God as the rule of his 
life — and the divine glory as the end of all his 
efforts, and in this manner fills up, well and 
property, the sphere divinely allotted to him, 
will at death be admitted into the heavenly 
world, and be made ineffably happy through 
eternity. This in few words is the character 
of a "good and faithful servant ; ' of the Lord, 
and the blessed reward to which he succeeds 
when he has finished his earthly course. 

A formal and full development of the charac- 
teristics of a " good and faithful servant " — and 
of the nature and grounds of the rewards be- 
stowed upon him at death seems called for by 
the text, and would comprise a rich and profit- 
able variety of thought ; but the circumstances 
of the occasion admonish me of the fitness 



SERMON. 157 

of brevity, and I shall therefore notice these 
things but incidentally, and as illustrated in the 
person and life of that excellent man, and 
brother in Christ, whose comparatively sudden 
and unexpected decease has now convened ns. 

And what gloom, what sorrow, what tender 
associations, what solemn and painful interest, 
gather around and attach to the event that 
has assembled ns in the sanctuary to-day ! 

In the death of any person there is some- 
thing that awakens a feeling which nothing 
else inspires, — a feeling which words are wholly 
inadequate to describe. 

That mysterious change which we see come 
over the form which was previously blooming 
in health, joyous in its activity, exquisitely 
sensitive, and diffusing pleasure on all around 
— which reduces it to insensibility, and clothes 
it with repulsive attributes — which dissolves 
all its earthly relations, and sunders all its ties, 



155 SERMON. 

however tender and dear, so that they can no 
more be formed, or united, — and then that dense 
darkness that overshadows, as to us, the 
nature of the futurity on which the departed 
spirit has entered, places the death of any indi- 
vidual among the most painful and appalling 
of events. We cannot contemplate death, 
even when occurring among strangers, doing 
its work upon the commonest citizens, though 
it has been ravaging the earth for many long 
centuries, without a severe and painful shock 
to all our sensibilities. But when viewed in 
closer proximity, — when its victim is taken 
from the circles of our acquaintance, or is one 
who has occupied places of influence or trust, 
and has been distinguished by excellence of 
character and usefulness of life, our emotions 
are more painful, the awe is more solemn 
and oppressive. 

But when it intrudes into our domestic 



SERMON. 159 

circle, and strikes down a venerable parent, a 
brother or sister, an affectionate child, or a 
beloved companion, — a husband, or wife, — the 
shock is almost overpowering, and emotions 
are awakened which we cannot describe, and 
which can find expression only in sighs and 
tears, and from the burden of which the soul 
can find adequate and permanent relief only in 
God, and in the grace of the gospel. 

Such to-day is our sad and painful position. 
Death has made a terrible breach upon us. 
He has made his mark high. An affectionate 
husband, a kind and indulgent father, a sym- 
pathizing and generous brother, a pleasant 
companion, a valuable citizen, an able " minis- 
ter of the New Testament," a most faithful 
and useful pastor, has fallen by his invisible, 
yet sure and fatal shaft. And what aggravates 
the woe is its sudden and unexpected visita- 
tion, and also the fact that, led by an over- 



160 SERMON. 

ruling, mysterious Providence to a distant city, 
when going in quest of health far beyond it, 
he fell, as it were exiled from the bosom of Lis 
family and. church, and where but few of 
either could be with him. But some of them 
were present, and witnessed the last scenes of 
his earthly existence, and ministered to all his 
wants. 

And strangers gathered round him there, 
and manifested, their sympathy, and extended 
their aid. Thanks to those kind and generous 
persons in that city, who, moved by Christian 
sympathy, cheerfully and promptly performed 
many offices of love and kindness to him, and 
those of his friends who were permitted to 
visit and temporarily to remain with him. 

But though the death we mourn is trying in 
the extreme, we will bow in humble submis- 
sion to the will of him who has inflicted it, not 
doubting that it has been ordered in infinite 



SERMON. 161 

wisdom, and for the promotion of great and 
glorious ends. Devoutly, we therefore say, in 
the midst of our sorrow, " Not our will, O 
God, but thine be done." 

"We come then, with subdued feelings, to the 
discharge of a painful duty, — the celebration of 
the funeral solemnities of the Eev. Henry Au- 
gustus Eowland, D. D. 

While to surviving relatives and friends the 
event we mourn is deeply afflictive, by reason 
of relations dissolved, ties sundered, friend- 
ships disturbed, and an awful, unalterable in- 
terdict which it has placed on all communica- 
tion with him on earth, " till the heavens be 
no more," still the scenes connected with it are 
not wholly dark. Light is mingled with them. 
There was much to console the living, to sus- 
tain the dying — and for many reasons, we 
think that death to him who has been taken 
from us is unspeakable gain. He sustained 



162 SERMON. 

in an eminent degree the character of the ser- 
vant whom the Master in the parable pro- 
moted, and, like him, he has entered, we doubt 
not, into the "joy of his Lord." We have, 
therefore, strong reasons on his account, at 
least, to mingle expressions of joy and thank* 
fulness, in our service, and greatly to moderate 
our griefs. Believing that he is now in the 
immediate presence of the Great Master — and 
in the unrestricted enjoyment of the blessed- 
ness of the heavenly world, into which none 
but " good and faithful servants " are admit- 
ted, we may compose our feelings, and think 
and speak of him freely, and derive the lessons 
which his active life and triumphant Christian 
death suggest and impressively enforce. 

The Eev. Henry Augustus Eowland, D. D., 
was the eldest son of the Rev. Henry A. Eow- 
land, who for many years was pastor of the first 
Congregational church of Windsor, in the State 



SERMON. 163 

of Connecticut. His mother was the daughter 
of the Hon. Moses Bliss, of Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts. He was born on the 19th of Sep- 
tember, 1804. The family consisted of five 
sons and two daughters, seven in all — two on- 
ly of whom — a brother and a sister — survive 
him. 

His early training was religious. In this 
regard he enjoyed the privileges usually con- 
nected with the families of evangelical and 
pious ministers of New England, and the 
salutary influence upon him was felt through 
all his life. His childhood was not particu- 
larly marked, but was spent chiefly at home, 
amid the scenes of his native place and the 
immediate vicinity. There he attended the 
common school, and, exhibiting a taste for the 
higher branches of education, and also the 
possession of talents which seemed to promise 
much usefulness, if cultivated, he was put up- 



164 



SERMON-. 



on a course of study preparatory to entering 
college. At the early age of fifteen he entered 
Yale College, and graduated in 1823. 

His hopeful conversion to Christ occurred 
soon after he had entered upon college life, 
and before he had attained his sixteenth year. 
Thus from his youth he was the servant of the 
Lord. Though young, his religious exercises, 
prior and subsequent to his conversion, were 
very distinctly marked, and the change 
wrought was so decisive as to be very satisfac- 
tory to his Christian friends, as well as to 
inspire himself with strong hope of his per- 
sonal acceptance of God, and of eternal life 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

From this date he became deeply interested 
for the salvation of his fellow-men. With his 
years this interest increased in strength. Hav- 
ing an intense desire to be engaged in the 
work of the gospel ministry, in order to pre- 



SERMOtf. 165 

pare himself for it, in 1824 lie entered the The- 
ological Seminary at Andover, in the State of 
Massachusetts, and for three years pursued 
with diligence the course of study prescribed in 
that institution. In the autumn of 1827, he 
was licensed to preach by the Hampden Con- 
gregational Association of Massachusetts. He 
now had attained the object which he had so 
long desired, and he addressed himself with 
energy to the work of the ministry as doors 
of labor were opened before him. 

His peculiar qualifications for enlisting the 
sympathies of people in objects in which 
he was himself interested —his industry and 
executive ability, soon brought him to . the 
notice of the officers and friends of the Amer- 
ican Bible Society, who sought and obtained 
his services in its behalf. He labored for that 
Society, discharging important duties, promot- 
ing its influence and usefulness, till the spring 



166 SERMON. 

of 1830, — a period of a little more than two 
years. 

During the summer of 1830 he labored in 
the city of Philadelphia, supplying the place 
of the pastor of the Arch street Presbyterian 
church (now the Rev. Dr. Skinner), who was 
temporarily absent. His ministry there was 
highly acceptable and useful, and many of the 
people of that congregation remember him 
still with much affection. On the 24th of 
November of the same year, he was ordained 
an Evangelist by the Presbytery of New York. 

Soon after his ordination, the Presbyterian 
church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, sought 
his labors as a pastor, and he removed thither 
and devoted himself to its service, though he 
declined to enter into the pastoral relation. He 
remained in Fayetteville and labored with 
very great acceptance, and with marked use- 
fulness, till the early part of 1834, when under 



SERMON. 167 

a strong sense of duty, though greatly regret- 
ted by the church and congregation, he re- 
turned to the North with a view to remain 
there. 

About that time the South Reformed Dutch 
church, in the city of New York, extended a 
call to him to become their pastor, in connec- 
tion with the Eev. Dr. Matthews, who then, 
and for a number of years previously, had held 
the pastoral office in that church without a 
colleague. Simultaneously with that movement 
in the South Dutch Church, the Pearl street 
Presbyterian church, in the same city, called 
him to its pastorate. He accepted the latter 
call, and was installed over the Pearl street 
church on the 13th of April, 1834, where he 
remained about nine years, and labored with 
great earnestness and encouraging success, not- 
withstanding the peculiar infelicities connected 
with its location, 



168 SERMON. 

-Having resigned the pastoral office in that 
church, and subsequently been called to take 
charge of the Presbyterian church in Hones- 
dale, in the State of Pennsylvania, on the 14th 
of June, 1843, he was installed over that peo- 
ple. On his settlement in nonesdale, he found 
the church and congregation very much affect- 
ed by unhappy differences, which were con- 
nected with the history of his immediate pre- 
decessor in the pastoral office, who eventually 
was deposed from the gospel ministry. By 
the blessing of God upon his instrumentality, 
those differences soon were harmonized, confi- 
dence and affection were restored, and the 
congregation increased in numbers and 
strength, and was marked by general prosper- 
ity. Besides its growth in numbers and 
material resources, many of its members were 
hopefully converted to God, and added to the 
communion, and it soon became one of the 



seemojst. 169 

most interesting, important and useful church- 
es in the Presbyterian connection. 

From Honesdale he removed to this city 
(Newark), to take charge of this church (the 
Park Presbyterian), to which he had been pre- 
viously called, and over which he was duly 
installed by the Presbytery of Newark, on the 
23d of January, 1856. With what assiduity, 
fidelity, zeal, and success he has labored here, 
perhaps most who hear me know. Suffice it 
to say, that the membership of the church and 
congregation has been very considerably aug- 
mented, — the interior of the church edifice has 
been refitted and handsomely improved, a 
much needed and convenient lecture-room has 
been erected, and the general interests of the 
congregation have been most encouragingly 
advanced, in connection with his ministry. 
Thus here, in this sacred temple where we 
are assembled, we have evidences clustering 



170 SERMON. 

around us, not only of his acceptableness, but 
of his usefulness, and possession of many rare 
traits of character, admirably fitting him for 
his work. But lie has fallen in the midst of 
his labors, — in the strength of his manhood, — 
and when bright visions as to the future, in 
the history of his charge, were calling him to 
increased exertions, which he earnestly longed 
to put forth. He has finished his course 
among the churches ; and here I may close my 
remarks upon this part of his history, and 
speak of other things. 

As a man, he was interesting and attractive. 
In person, he was above the ordinary stature, 
well proportioned, having a finely formed and 
intelligent face, and a kind expression of fea- 
tures. His appearance was manly, and adapt- 
ed to inspire respect, confidence and love. He 
had a strong sense of honor, integrity, and 
justice, which discovered itself in all the de- 



SERMON. 171 

partments of life. He was benevolent and 
truthful. He cherished a strong sympathy for 
his kind, which always rendered him an agree- 
able companion in those circles in which he 
had occasion to be. He was true to all his 
friendships. His natural temperament was 
ardent, cheerful, and confiding, and like others 
of that peculiar cast, he was subject to seasons 
of depression. 

He was a sincere man. He was undisguised, 
open, frank in spirit and in action. There 
was with him no concealment, no harboring 
in his bosom, hidden from view, the feelings 
and opinions he had formed concerning men, 
or their procedure, or anything else, about 
which his position or his duty required him to 
speak. He frankly uttered his convictions, 
purposes, or plans, his griefs or joys, to such 
an extent as to seem almost to ignore what the 
world calls prudence. He preferred to be 



172 SERMON. 

betrayed at times, and wounded, too, by the 
designing, if it must be so, than to suppress 
the kind and generous feelings of the soul, the 
exercise of undisguised simplicity, or the utter- 
ance of what he regarded truth. In this re- 
spect, his was a character of great transpar- 
ency. 

He was eminently a good man. Of his 
conversion to Christ, and genuine attachment 
to the religion of the gospel, even a casual 
observer would scarcely fail to receive a deep 
impression, while those who knew him intimate- 
ly, in the various positions incident to his ac- 
tive ministerial life, received it still more deeply. 
He uniformly, though unconsciously, imparted 
the conviction to beholders, that he loved the 
Saviour and his cause. His cheerfulness and 
mirth, his sorrows and his sighs, every feeling 
and principle of his nature, were chastened, 
modified, and governed by the laws of Chris- 



SEEMON. 173 

tian obligation; and if by any impulses he 
was led to strong expressions, or decided ac- 
tion in a wrong direction, he would soon re- 
turn, and find his proper place, as a conscien- 
tious, faithful disciple of the " Son of man." 

He had no long-cherished hatred to gratify 
— no old grudges to revenge. If maligned, 
or ill-treated, his sanguine temperament might 
produce prompt and strong remonstrance, or 
sudden effort at adjustment, as he conceived 
the cause of truth and righteousness required ; 
but he soon forgave the wrong, and acted as 
though it had been done in ignorance, or per- 
haps not done at all. 

Governed by the law of Christian love, he 
cheerfully took part in measures designed for 
individual and public welfare. He sympa- 
thized with the poor, the destitute and the 
oppressed, even as an elder brother, or a fa- 
ther; and many a suffering individual, and 



174 SERMON. 

family, too. have enjoyed the advantage of 
his counsels, his words of consolation, or other 
forms of aid, which few besides the recipients 
have ever known. 

lie was a man of unusual ability. His in- 
tellectual capacity was much above that of 
most men. His studies had well developed 
the intellectual powers with which he was en- 
dowed by nature, and qualified him to occupy 
and hold with honor to himself and friends, 
not only a respectable, but a distinguished 
place- among the more eminent ministers of the 
gospel. Of the elevated, or superior rank of 
his mind, his work, entitled "The Path of Life," 
is abundant testimony. Had he published noth- 
ing else, that is sufficient, not only to give him 
rank among the ablest ministers in this coun- 
try, and abroad, but to perpetuate a remem- 
brance of him as a benefactor and a verv 
strong man in the religious world. Already 



SERMON. 175 

his name is fragrant with the blessings of 
many inquirers for salvation, who by that pro- 
duction of his pen have been led, instrumen- 
tally, into the light and joys of evangelical 
religion. 

His work entitled the " Common Maxims of 
Infidelity" discovers the same qualities of 
mind. In that volume he grappled with 
the " strong man armed," and fairly overcame 
him in his palace, and despoiled him of his 
vaunted power and glory. His other works, 
" The Path of Peace" and " Light in a Dark 
Alley" exhibit the same traits — the existence 
and working of a vigorous intellect. 

But strength was not the only quality of 
his mind. He had other attributes which 
fitted him for compositions of quite another 
type than those to which reference has been 
made — qualities which rendered his contribu- 
tions to the public press quite acceptable to 



176 SERMON. 

the lovers of " light literature." His writings, 
prompted by passing events in domestic, social, 
or civil life, or by other causes, are various as 
to their topics and style of execution, but all 
bear the impress of one intent upon some good 
end. If they contain occasionally a phrase or 
paragraph, which a rigid censorship might 
desire expunged, none who read them without 
prejudice would put down aught to malice in 
the author. They bear upon their face the 
evidence rather of a kind and genial spirit, 
which would shrink from inflicting a wound, 
even on those whose foibles, or errors, it might 
mirthfully expose, with a view to secure their 
reform. 

But I am anxious to say, what I feel assured 
his people, and all who knew him, will con- 
firm : He was an excellent Pastor. 

I do not mean to say that in this relation he 
was perfect. Perfection belongs only to the 



SERMON. ] 177 

great Head of the dmrch. But I do mean to 
say, that he was remarkably endowed with 
qualities adapted to that sacred and important 
office, and fitted to render him useful, success- 
ful, and happy in it, whatever want of perfec- 
tion might have been attached to him. 

He appreciated the office and its relations, 
and cherished a deep and an abiding sense of 
its responsibilities. 

He sincerely loved the duties of a pas- 
tor, and devoted himself without reserve to 
the performance of them. His whole heart 
went into the work to which he had been 
called, and his ministry was consequently not 
marked as a divided service. 

As a preacher he had more than ordinary 
ability. In his sermons he studied clearness 
of method, comprehensiveness of thought and 
expression, and directness in application to 
the condition and wants of his hearers. His 



178 SERMON. 

preaching partook more of a didactic and ar- 
gumentative, than of a discursive and horta- 
tory form. Doctrinal discussion held a prom- 
inent place in his pulpit exercises. Though 
not insensible to the beauties of rhetoric, and 
competent to a highly finished order of com- 
position, he aimed rather to instruct and to 
persuade to a life of godliness, than to attract 
admiration by a display of mere genius, or 
any of the ornaments of style. In manner he 
was plain, yet uniformly earnest and impas- 
sioned. 

Prompted by industry, which was natural 
to him, as well as by the force of religious 
principle, he visited the members of his con- 
gregation frequently, and kept himself apprised 
of their moral and religious state, and of their 
various wants. He visited the dwellers in the 
lanes and alleys of the city ; he entered the 
stores of the merchants, the shops of the me- 



SEEMON. 179 

chanics, the business places of the workmen 
of different trades, manifestly with as much 
interest as he visited others in other parts of 
the citj, and in what is regarded by some as 
the more elevated walks of life. His errand 
to those places was to seek for opportunities of 
doing good, as a minister of the gospel. He 
desired to convey to those he visited the word 
of life — to gather them into the fold of Christ ; 
or, if they were already members of the di- 
vine family, to promote in them the growth 
of grace. He knew how to be condescending, 
and also how to be firm. He knew how to en- 
courage, and also how to rebuke, for the wel- 
fare of the soul, and the honor of the Saviour 
and his cause ; and in these things, and this 
course of procedure, doubtless lay the secret 
of much of his success in the pastoral offi.Ge. 
He was deeply interested in the children 
and youth of his church. Apparently he was 



180 



SERMON. 



never better pleased, or happy, than when 
with them,— taking part in their affairs, com- 
municating some instructions, and seeking to 
interest them in moral and religious things. 
With remarkable facility he could enter into 
their conceptions, and identify himself with 
them, and when he had imparted the les- 
sons which he designed, resume his former 
position, and engage again in the duties of his 
office among the older members of his charge. 
But while he faithfully labored for the wel- 
fare of his congregation, and longed for its 
advancement with a strong and consuming 
desire, his feelings were deeply enlisted in the 
prosperity of the denomination to which he 
belonged. He identified himself at an early 
day with the policy and plans of the leading 
members of the body, and enjoyed to a laro-e 
extent the confidence and respect of those who 
knew him, and was allowed, in the ecclesiasti- 



SERMON. 181 

cal assemblies, local and general, of which he 
was at any time a member, an honorable 
share of influence. 

It would add strength to the convictions we 
now have of the loveliness and excellence of 
his character, if I might speak of him as 
known in his domestic circle, and fulfilling the 
duties of- his various relations within it. But 
I may not intrude upon the scenes of private 
and domestic life. I may say, however, that 
he was a kind, affectionate, and good father, a 
tender and devoted husband, a sympathizing 
and generous brother. He was to his family a 
happy exemplification of what the names of 
the relations he bore in it signify. But he is 
taken from it, from his church, and the 
wo^d, to the enjoyment of the reward of the 
" good and faithful servant." 

As we can see him no more in the midst of 
us, discharging the duties, or exercising the 



182 BBBMOW. 

functions, of the sacred office which he held, 
let us convey, ourselves in imagination at least 
to the place where his last days were spent. 
Let us with reverence, becoming stillness and 
solemnity enter the sick chamber, and view 
him amid the scenes of approaching and ac- 
tual dissolution. Let us remember, that not 
till recently did he entertain a conviction tha t 
his earthly work was nearly done, — that he 
was about to be called from time to eternity. 
At his departure from this city, in July 
last, to visit the eastern part of Massachu- 
setts, and indeed for some days after his ar- 
rival in Boston, where he was detained by 
increasing illness, and where he eventually 
died, he entertained the confident expectation 
of speedily recovering his health, and then of 
resuming his ministerial labors. It was but a 
very short period previous to his decease that 
he abandoned that expectation, and became 



SERMON. 183 

convinced that he was near his end. The 
scenes of* that moment when he gave up the 
hope of recovery were scenes which language 
is incompetent fully to portray ; but they were* 
all honorable to himself, in all the relations 
he sustained, to the religion he professed, 
and of which he was a minister. He received 
the intimations of his friends on the subject, 
and the convictions of his own mind, not 
merely with composure, but as a Christian far 
advanced in the divine life, and ripe for the 
anticipated change. 

The nature of the malady by which he was 
affected, was such that his physician* had di 
rected that he should be kept entirely quiet 
Owing to the state of his throat, he could con 
verse but little, and only with great effort. 
When he spoke, it was with such indistinct 
ness, that it was extremely difficult to under 

* Dr. Jeffreys. 



184 SERMON. 

stand his words. But it was satisfactory to 
know, as it was known by various means, that 
his mind was clear, that he apprehended his 
condition, and that he retained his conscious- 
ness to the last. 

On one occasion a little before his death, he 
clearly manifested the strong affection which 
he still entertained for his family, his friends, 
his church, and all the interests which had been 
committed to his care. His thoughts became 
too intense to be pent up in his bosom, and 
under the excitement, he tried to speak. He 
spoke with the relatives who attended upon 
him, and took an affectionate farewell of them, 
and sent farewell messages to those members of 
his family who were absent. He remembered, 
too, the people of his charge, and wished to leave 
for them his dying counsels. He began to 
speak, pronounced a word or two, but his ut- 
terance was unequal to his wishes ; a pause en- 



SERMON. 185 

sued, his strength, was gone, and he could 
not complete what he had commenced and de- 
sired to say. 

Subsequently there were moments when he 
could and did speak at least a few words. And 
when he could be understood, it was strikingly 
manifest that he enjoyed a most happy frame 
of mind. Illustrative of this is the following 
fact. When the Eev. Dr. Blagden, one of the 
pastors in Boston, in one of the last interviews 
which he held with him and his attendants, 
quoted a passage of Scripture, adapted to the 
occasion, Dr. Eowland- exclaimed with much 
and manifestly joyous emotion: " The Lord is 
good ! The Lord is good ! The Lord is wise ! 
Praise the Lord." 

When asked, a few days before his death, 
whether he could still place his confidence in 
Jesus, — he replied : " Yes, I rejoice ! I rejoice!" 

On one occasion, after having laid quiet 



186 SERMON^ 

for a considerable time, he raised his arm, and 
pointed towards heaven : Ilis wife noticing 
the attitude said to him : 

" You see the beautiful land ?" 

II' nodded assent twice. 

Another friend then said to him : 

"You will soon be there, and your trials 
will be over." 

He again nodded assent, and said : " Home !" 

The friend rejoined : 

" There you will meet many loved ones, who 
have gone before." 

He said : " More ! more !" 

" Yon mean," said the friend, " yon will 
see Jesus, whom yon love more than all the 
rest ?" 

He nodded three times, as if he wished to 
give emphasis to the thought, and said: 

"The Lamb! The Lamb !" 

Christian friends, and members of this be- 



SERMON. 187 

loved church, these utterances and these scenes 
of the dying chamber which have now held 
your attention a brief moment, reveal the frame 
of mind in which your pastor died. You may 
now return from the sacred spot where he 
closed his useful life, and where you have now 
seen the triumphs of Christian faith, over death 
and all its associations to this sanctuary. For 
the last words of your beloved Pastor, you 
have now heard. The last moment of his 
earthly life, you have now seen. You left him 
in an ecstacy of joy, ravished with a view of 
the "Lamb," the great and glorious Saviour of 
sinners. You saw him then going rapidly to 
the embrace of that Saviour, and to a trium- 
phant and most welcome entrance into the celes- 
tial city — the paradise of God, where no sin 
nor sorrow enters, and where he must be in- 
creasingly happy forevermore. Under the 
guidance and protection of " The Lamb," he 



188 SERMON. 

is safe. And I am persuaded, that you, even 
in the midst of your sorrows because of your 
bereavement, can rejoice to leave him in the 
heavenly world to "follow the Lamb whither- 
soever he goeth." Cease, then, your sorrow- 
ing and your tears, and rejoice that your Pas- 
tor has entered into life eternal. 

Eelatives and friends of the deceased — can 
you not heartily unite in this sentiment ? We 
know, indeed, that your hearts bleed— that 
your sorrow is deep — your affliction over- 
whelming, especially when you think of the 
bereavementyou have suffered. But think of the 
scenes of which I have spoken, — of the rewards 
to which your beloved has gone ! What 
higher honors, what greater and more enduring 
good, could you ask for him ! With him all 
evils are at an end, and pure and perfect hap- 
piness is enjoyed. And it is to be continued 
for ever. 



SERMON. 189 

" Lo ! the prisoner is released, 
Lightened of his fleshly load ; 
"Where the weary are at rest, 
He is gathered unto God I 
Lo I the pain of life is past, 
All his warfare now is o'er ; 
Death and hell behind are cast, 
Grief and suffering are no more. 
Yes, the Christian's course is run, 
Ended is the glorious strife ; 
Fought the fight, the work is done, 
Death is swallowed up of life I 
Borne by angels on their wings, 
Far from earth the spirit flies, 
Finds his God, and sits and sings, 
Triumphing in Paradise." 

From this delightful view of the state of the 
believers in Christ after death — and we confi- 
dently believe that he whom you now mourn is 
in the enjoyment of it — you may derive much 
consolation. But let me remind you that there is 
a sure and unfailing source of support to which 
you may always repair, and have all your 



190 SERMON. 

griefs assuaged. The Saviour has been mani- 
fested in the flesh, that he might sympathize 
with his people. Go, therefore, to him, cast all 
your burdens on him, for he careth for you. 
Trust in him, and he will not only sustain and 
comfort you, but this dark, perplexing and 
crushing dispensation, which baffles all your 
attempts now to understand, he will most cer- 
tainly enable you to comprehend hereafter. 
To him, and to the word of his grace, I com- 
mend you ; praying that he will, through this 
life, support and comfort you, and when it 
shall be ended, an entrance may be ministered 
to you abundantly, into his everlasting king- 
dom with exceeding joy. 

Brethren of the ministry ! How loud the 
appeal, how solemn the language of this be- 
reavement to us! With what urgency and 
power does it admonish us to be active, ear- 
nest, and diligent in our work ! We may be 



SERMON. 191 

near the close of our earthly service ! But a 
few weeks since, our lamented brother trod the 
streets of this city with a firm and vigorous 
step, proclaimed with strong and healthful 
voice the truths of the gospel in this desk, and 
took part in all the activities of life, as we do 
this day. But he has ended his course. It 
has pleased the Master suddenly to withdraw 
him — to call him to his reward. Let us, 
therefore, be vigilant. Let us do with our 
might whatsoever our hands find to do, that 
when called to render the account of our stew- 
ardship, it may be said to us individually by 
our divine Lord and Master, — 

" Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; 
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I 
will make thee ruler over many things : enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



3 1880. 



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